
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

CI/a t !'^J.i;'C i{n|rig[| 
Shelf*K2, 

1 ? 0 .„ . 

a. 

AMERICA. 

UNITED STATES OF 


Sr.s 



























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































I 

















THE JEWS 


3 


OR 

PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT 


AN 


ARGUMENT FOR THE TIMES 


SAMUEL 





D.D. 


AUTHOR OF “THE LIGHT OF ASIA AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,” 
“ FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION,” ETC. 




NEW EDITION WITH AN APPENDIX. 


:c 23 1887 X 

33 V x > 


/ 


NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 






Copyright, 1883, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 


Copyright, 1887, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company 


EDWARD O. JENKINS* SONS, 

Printers and Stereotvpers, 

20 North William Street , New York. 




>w. 


PREFACE. 


Public attention has of late years been called 
to the Jews in a degree quite unusual, if not, 
indeed, without a precedent in history. The 
rapid rise of that nation to notable power and 
influence in a large part of Christendom, and, 
with this, the intensity of anti-Jewish feeling 
in Russia and elsewhere, have combined to ex¬ 
cite a new interest both among Christians and 
unbelievers, and awaken an unwonted and 
still growing spirit of inquiry touching all that 
pertains to this ancient and remarkable people.* 

* This is well illustrated by the prominence given of 
late to Jewish topics in the periodical literature of the 
day. Thus, e.g., to mention only a few of many in¬ 
stances, the Contemporary Review has had articles on 
various phases of Jewish affairs in the Numbers for 
July, 1878, January and March, 1881, September and 
November, 1882; the Nineteenth Century in the Num¬ 
bers for April and July, 1878, February, 1881, August 
and November, 1882. In the last-named month, be¬ 
sides the Contemporary and the Nineteenth Century , 
Macmillan's and Blackwood's Magazines also had arti- 




PREFACE. 


iv 

The present work is offered to the public at the 
suggestion of many friends who have shared 
with the author a strong conviction that the 
facts concerning the Jews which are presented 
in the following pages have a decisive bearing 
on certain exceedingly important questions 
much debated in our day, and also a belief that 
in view of the present interest in the Jews an 
argument based upon these facts may well have 
a special fitness to our times. 

First among these weighty questions which 
occupy the public mind,—both as to its intrinsic 
consequence and the degree in which it is agi¬ 
tating Christendom,—is the question whether or 
not the Bible is in very truth the infallible 
Word of God. No one, whatever his opinion 
in the matter, can doubt for a moment that next 
after the question of the being of God, none can 
possibly outweigh this in importance. The con¬ 
troversy on this subject, in the form in which 
we have it in our day, involves not only the 
fact, but even the possibility of a supernatural 
revelation. That the Scriptures do claim to be 

cles dealing with Jewish questions. It is not without 
some reason that a leading Jewish paper, commenting 
on this last circumstance, remarks that “it is a very 
marked sign of the times that editors, w T ho can gauge 
so well the interests of the reading public, are so ready 
to admit articles dealing with Jewish topics” 



PREFACE. 


V 


Biich a revelation, no man can donbt. The 
writers in the several books claim to be speak¬ 
ing and writing, not their own word, nor in their 
own name, but God’s Word, in God’s name. 
In support of this claim they appeal, moreover, 
to miracles wrought and predictions of the fut¬ 
ure fulfilled. With all this, however, our mod¬ 
ern scepticism makes short work. Antecedent 
to all examination of the testimony, it is often 
frankly declared that if it shall bear witness to 
anything miraculous, then it must be rejected, 
because, according to the modern view of the 
world, it is settled that a miracle is an impossi¬ 
bility.* In like manner, what profess to be 
predictions of the future cannot be really such, 
because, again, the supernatural is impossible. 
These postulates having been laid down, all the 
resources of extensive learning and an inge¬ 
nuity often truly marvellous are employed in 
the way of exegesis and literary criticism to 
discredit and break down that testimony to the 
reality of supernatural interventions in human 
affairs of which the Scriptures are so full. 
How much success this assault upon the faith of 
Christendom is having, the general unsettle- 


* See illustrations given by Dr. Pusey in his Lectures 
on the Prophet Daniel, pp. 1-7; also remarks of Profes- 
BOr Delitzsch in his Commentary on Isaiah , pp. 60 j 61. 




VI 


PREFACE. 


ment of an absolute faith in the infallible au¬ 
thority of the Holy Scriptures very sadly testi¬ 
fies. As the result of exegesis and criticism of 
this unbelieving sort it has come to pass, that 
whereas in former days Christians were accus¬ 
tomed to rely very much in proof of the in¬ 
spiration of the Scriptures upon the argument 
from fulfilled prophecy, a feeling has grown up 
of late that the argument is at least a very 
doubtful one, and has not the practical v^lue 
which it once had. In consequence of this im¬ 
pression, that line of defence has latterly been 
much neglected. In the judgment of the au¬ 
thor this is much to be regretted. He believes 
that good men do not wisely in thus practically 
giving up this argument to the enemy. How¬ 
ever individuals may have sometimes erred in 
their application of prophecy to the events of 
history, yet surely the misuse of an argument 
is no good reason for casting it aside. So far 
from the argument from prophecy not being 
suited to our time, in point of fact no argument 
could well be more so. Ho argument so di¬ 
rectly and squarely faces the issue which is 
raised by modern unbelief. We are told that 
the supernatural and, therefore, divine predic¬ 
tion of the future is impossible. This, as every 
one knows, is made the fundamental postulate 
of the destructive school of Biblical criticism. 


PREFACE. 


Yll 

Surely the best conceivable answer to this de¬ 
nial of the possibility of the supernatural must 
be to oppose to theory, fact. 

Let us demonstrate, if possible, that, all theo¬ 
ries to the contrary notwithstanding, fulfilled 
prediction is a fact. If we can but show that 
there are clear predictions in the Scriptures 
which were undeniably written long before 
any events to which they could refer, and that 
under such conditions that mere human shrewd¬ 
ness could not have anticipated their fulfilment; 
and that, moreover, events corresponding to 
the predictions have really occurred in his¬ 
tory under conditions such as preclude the sup¬ 
position of a coincidence which is merely acci¬ 
dental ; then surely we have shown that there 
was in the prophets a foreknowledge more than 
human, and have demonstrated the actual oc¬ 
currence of a supernatural revelation from God 
to man. But if this be proven, even for a soli¬ 
tary instance, then the theory which declares 
the supernatural to be impossible is thereby 
refuted, and the fundamental principle upon 
which the whole work of the destructive criti¬ 
cism has been based disappears as the baseless 
fancy of a false philosophy, which cannot be al¬ 
lowed the slightest value as a canon of histori¬ 
cal criticism. 

Thus it is plain that the argument from ful- 





PREFACE. 


• • • 

vm 

filled prophecy, so far from now being out of 
date, can never be out of date so long as unbe¬ 
lief maintains its present position. While this 
is true of the argument from prophecy in gen¬ 
eral, it is above all true of the argument for the 
inspiration of the Scriptures which is derived 
from the fulfilment of the ancient predictions 
concerning the fortunes of the Jewish nation. 
For however hostile critics may raise doubts as 
to the date of some individual prophecies, there 
can be no doubt that these predictions concern¬ 
ing the Jewish nation were many of them put 
on record ages before they had passed into his¬ 
tory. Many of them, indeed, belong to a pe¬ 
riod of time at the latest so remote from the 
lowest date which criticism has ventured to as¬ 
sign to them, and were in themselves so ex¬ 
tremely improbable, that it cannot be reasonably 
supposed for a moment that human sagacity 
could have anticipated their occurrence. This 
line of argument, as we shall have occasion fur¬ 
ther to note, is thus independent of the alleged 
results of criticism as to the age of various 
books of Scripture. 

And this leads us to another consideration 
which makes this line of argument especially 
suited to our times. The unbelief of our 
day claims to be, and in fact is, a learned and 
scholarly unbelief. Even to follow many of 


PREFACE. 


ix 


the most eminent of the unbelieving critics 
through the reasonings by which they arrive at 
their fatal conclusions, demands a special train¬ 
ing which it is no disparagement to say is not 
commonly found even among worthy and com¬ 
petent ministers, still less among the laity of 
our churches. And while we have all reason 
to be grateful to those eminent Christian schol¬ 
ars who are meeting the unbelieving critics on 
their own chosen ground of the higher criti¬ 
cism, yet for such minute and critical study of 
the original Scriptures as is required, the most 
even of Christian ministers have not the leisure 
from the pressing duties of a pastor’s practical 
life. This argument from prophecy, however, 
and especially from the predictions concerning 
the Jews, while if it be made out it nullities 
the fundamental principle upon which the un¬ 
believing criticism proceeds, is yet one for the 
appreciation of which no special training or 
recondite investigation is needed. The facts 
with regard to the Jews are familiar in their 
leading features, even to many uneducated 
men; they are to be observed in our streets, 
and may be gathered from our daily papers. 

We may, therefore, truly say that the Jews 
present an argument for the supernatural in¬ 
spiration of the Christian Scriptures, which, in 
view of the present attitude of unbelief, is very 






PREFACE. 


X 

specially adapted to the requirements of the 
time in which we live. It is submitted that 
the facts presented in this book are such as, 
when compared with the predictions of the 
Scriptures, should command the thoughtful 
consideration of all, and especially of those 
who, bewildered by the parade of learned criti¬ 
cal arguments against the genuineness and the 
inspiration of the books of the prophets, know 
not what to answer, and can with difficulty re¬ 
tain their faith. 

But these same facts have a bearing, not 
only on the question of the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, but also on that of their interpreta¬ 
tion. In this respect, also, the Jews furnish an 
argument of peculiar pertinence to our day. 
The Church of to-day is much exercised with 
the discussion and study of “ the last things.” 
The rapid and stupendous changes which have 
marked the period beginning with the great 
revolution at the close of the last century have 
had a mighty effect in directing the minds of 
men throughout the world, both within and 
without the Church, to the momentous prob¬ 
lem of man’s approaching future and ultimate 
destiny. This awakened interest in the future 
of the race and of the world is manifested in 
the Church by the immense amount of discus¬ 
sion and of publication on the subject of unful 


PREFACE. 


xi 

filled prophecy and of apocalyptic interpreta¬ 
tion. It also appears in a practical form in 
that missionary activity of the Church which 
has so distinguished the present century. For 
this evangelistic work, however the workers 
may differ in other details, always has regard 
to a future expected triumph of the kingdom 
of Christ over the power of evil in the world, 
as in some way humanly conditioned by the 
previous proclamation of the Gospel to all na¬ 
tions. 

We may also observe the same engagement 
of the minds of men in the question of the des¬ 
tiny of humanity, even in the world outside the 
church. For what is the idea of the masses of 
the people and their leaders everywhere in 
Christendom but to bring about, by the appli¬ 
cation of their various theories to social and po¬ 
litical life, an ideal state of things on earth, 
wherein the present evils of society shall 
either vanish altogether, or be reduced to an 
insignificant minimum, and which may fairly 
be regarded as in some true sense the final goal 
of the progress of humanity and the ultimate 
realization of its hopes and longings in a per¬ 
fect state and a perfect society ? * It is felt 

* A suggestive passage from Martensen may be cited 
here. He says: “ Worldly as well as religious con¬ 
sciousness has its Chiliasm, inasmuch as it assumes that 



PREFACE. 


• • 

Xll 

and acknowledged by thoughtful men gener 
ally—even by those who agree in little else—that 
the world is approaching, if indeed it have not 
already entered, a period of crisis perhaps un¬ 
precedented in its history, when we may reason¬ 
ably look at no distant day for the most extra¬ 
ordinary changes. And while all except a few 
utter pessimists believe that these anticipated 
changes may be expected to issue in a great 
moral elevation of the race, yet many of the 
most judicious students of history, both in the 
Church and the w^orld, look forward with un¬ 
concealed concern to the possibilities of social 
and political catastrophe which lie between us 
and the hoped-for consummation of blessing. 
Such is undoubtedly the state of mind which, 
is characteristic of our time. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances it is natural and right that those 
who still believe in the Bible as the very Word 
of God should turn with new interest to that 
prophetic word which is given us, we are told, 


there ia a goal of perfection which the human race can 

reach within the present condition of things. 

Can we deny that the political, the socialistic, the com- 
munis'tic tendencies of our own day .... are pregnant 
with the crudest Chiliasm?” (Christlicke Dogmatih , 
§281). See also Auberlen: Der Prophet Daniel unA 
die Offeiibarung Johannis, Dritte Auflage, Basel, i874; 
S. 213. 




PREFACE. 


Xlll 

to be “ a lamp shining in a dark place until the 
day dawn.” * Believers in the word would fain 
see whether God has revealed aught by which 
we may judge whither things are tending, and 
what we have to expect in the age which is be¬ 
fore us. Opening the Scriptures we find un¬ 
doubtedly numerous predictions which seem to 
refer to a period yet future. But at once arise 
among good men great differences of interpre¬ 
tation. And this question how we are to inter¬ 
pret these prophecies becomes under the pres¬ 
ent conditions of the world one of very special 
and pressing interest. For as we interpret 
these unfulfilled predictions, so shall we inter¬ 
pret the history of our time, and so will our 
anticipations concerning the future, and even 
our practical activity, in some measure be de¬ 
termined. And when we ask by what princi¬ 
ple we shall be guided in interpretation, surely 
none can be taken as safer than this,—that the 
interpretation of what in prophecy remains yet 
unfulfilled must be determined by the analogy 
of past fulfilment. And it is just at this point 
again that the. Jews furnish an argument of 
great consequence for this generation which is 
60 earnest in the investigation of these matters. 
For we all know the Jews and their history 


* 2 Pet. i. 19. Revised Version. 



xiv 


PREFACE. 


well; we can readily learn, if we have never 
yet thought upon it, how God has fulfilled His 
numerous predictions concerning this people up 
to the present time. Their history, therefore, 
affords the Church a most safe, as it is a most 
easily available guide, for interpreting the pre¬ 
dictions of God’s Word as to what yet remains 
of the history of redemption. It may with 
good reason be laid down as a maxim to be 
ever borne in mind by the student of the 
Scriptures,—Let him who will study the unful¬ 
filled predictions of God’s Word, study first of 
all the history and the present condition of the 
Jewish nation. In this point of view, again, it 
is hoped that this book may prove to be in 
some measure suited to the need of our day. 

As far as regards the history of the Jews 
down to the present century, the present work, 
of course, covers ground that has been well 
traversed before, and lays no claim to original¬ 
ity, except in so far as it attempts to show 
how abundantly the latest investigations of 
travellers and archaeologists have confirmed 
that argument for the inspiration of the 
Scriptures from the past history of the Jews 
and their land which has been so well devel¬ 
oped by Dr. Keith and others. 

But the position of the Jews in Christendom 
has greatly changed within the last one or two 


PREFACE. 


XV 


generations, and is still changing rapidly. Aa 
regards these changes and their effect in the 
present condition of the Jews, it is believed, 
that the facts presented in this book are col¬ 
lected in one place and their bearing on the ar¬ 
gument from prophecy and the question of its 
interpretation examined for the first time. How 
difficult it is to make out a trustworthy record 
of the facts of contemporaneous history, which 
have to be gathered from so diverse sources, 
and which are so liable to be colored by parti 
san feeling or distorted by prejudice, will be 
best understood by those who have attempted 
something of the kind. But while it were per¬ 
haps too much to hope that no inaccuracy shall 
have found its way into such parts of this book, 
it is yet believed that none will be found of 
such material consequence as to affect the truth 
of general statements based upon the facts pre¬ 
sented. 

The book has been written under a deep con¬ 
viction that the doctrines and principles therein 
argued are the truth of God, and that they 
are, moreover, truths to which it is of very 
serious consequence that the Church of to-day, 
—too ready, alas! to listen to other teachers 
than the apostles and prophets of the Lord—« 
should give most earnest heed. It is the au¬ 
thor’s hope, however, that while thus using tho 


XV J PREFACE. 

tones of personal conviction, he shall not be 
found in any word to have violated the law of 
love and charity toward Christian brethren 
with whom, on points not essential to salva¬ 
tion, he has been constrained to differ. That 
the Lord may own this little work in making 
it to confirm in these days of doubt the faith 
of some, and to stimulate and quicken all who 
read it, in the work of His kingdom, is the 
author’s earnest prayer. 

S. H. K. 


Allegheny, Pa., April 23, 1883. 


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 


A little more tlian four years have passed 
since tlie present volume was first given to the 
public. The inquiry will naturally arise how the 
progress of events since its first publication has 
affected the argument of the book. In an Ap¬ 
pendix to the present edition, the author has 
endeavored to bring together such facts as bear 
upon the answer to this question; with what re¬ 
sult, readers will be able to judge for themselves. 
For himself, he can only say that neither in the 
events of the time as bearing on the position 
and prospects of Israel, nor in any of the con¬ 
siderations urged by a few of his reviewers, has 
he found anything which to his mind essential¬ 
ly modifies either the argument of this book or 
its conclusions. Not one of the few who have 
attempted to set aside the conclusions of the 
book has attempted to disprove- the essential 
facts upon which the argument is based; nor 
even when, as in a single case, certain facts have 
been denied, has the critic attempted to give any 
authority for his contradiction beyond his own 
unsupported assertions and unproved opinions. 

The book is again sent forth with thankful- 

(xrii) 





xviii preface to the second edition. 

ness for the reception with which it has met 
on both sides of the Atlantic, and with the 
prayer that the Lord may continue to make it 
helpful to an increasing number of seekers after 
truth. 

S. H. K. 

Toronto, Canada, September 26 , 1887 . 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

SEPARATED PROM THE NATIONS. 

Unique characteristics of the Jews.—Their antiquity— 
Chronology of their history—Brief duration of their 
independence—Their indestructibility—Exceptional 
influence upon human history—the source of all 
existing monotheism.—Inexplicable on mere natural 
grounds.—A history written in advance. . . . 1-14 


CHAPTER II. 

FORETOLD AND FULFILLED. 

Prediction and fulfilment of evils threatened against 
the Jews .—Their apostasy—Subjection to foreign 
power—Dispersion among the nations—Their tribu¬ 
lations in exile—Duration of these calamities—Num¬ 
ber to be diminished—To be a byword—Attempts at 
delivering them to fail—Their religious condition in 
exile. Predictions concerning their land —Its desola¬ 
tion—For how long.—Testimonies to the literal 
fulfilment of these.—Prediction and fulfilment con¬ 
cerning Jerusalem .—Jewish history thus written in 
advance—An unparalleled fact—Unaffected by con- 

(xix) 



XX 


CONTENTS. 


elusions of radical critics as to the date of the sacred 
books—Not fortunate guessing—Events foretold 
contrary to Jewish wishes—Highly improbable.— 
Bearing of these facts on the inspiration and genuine¬ 
ness of the Scriptures.. 


CHAPTER III. 

TO BE FULFILLED. 

Unfulfilled promises to Israel, (1) Spiritual, (2) Temporal. 
Their conversion predicted—Not yet fulfilled.— Proof 
of this.—The conversion to be universal—final—with 
mourning for a pierced Messiah—Paul’s testimony— 
will mark a crisis in history.—Promises of temporal 
restoration—cannot all refer to the return from 
Babylon— Proof. The restoration to be in the latter 
days—to be final—complete—the nation to be inde¬ 
pendent—and holy—called a “ second ” return—must 
therefore be future. These temporal promises to be 
understood literally. Proof. God’s unfulfilled cov¬ 
enant touching the land—distinction between the 
Mosaic and Abrahamic covenants.—The analogy of 
past fulfilment of prophecies—concerning Messiah’s 
humiliation—Gentile nations—the curses upou Israel 
—Precise correspondence of blessings promised to 
curses threatened—Fulfilment must be after the 
same manner—therefore literal. Objections considered. 
Paul makes Israel to denote all true believers—Israel 
both a nation and the church—regarded as the latter 
in the O. T. promises—Literal fulfilment impossible 
—nations named in the restoration prophecies 
extinct—the ten tribes lost—The literal interpreta¬ 
tion implies a reestablishment of the Mosaic ritual— 
Ezekiel xl.-xlviii.—Also implies miraculous physical 
changes at the restoration—a reestablishment of the 
theocracy—the exaltation of the Jews above other 


15-55 



CONTENTS. 


xxi 


nations—Gal. iii. 28.—The understanding of these 
prophecies of no practical consequence. . . 56-134 


CHAPTER IV. 

THEORIES ASTD FACTS. 

Historical fulfilment the test of theories of prophetic 
interpretation—Application to restoration prophecies 
—The restoration probably gradual—possible there¬ 
fore to test the literal interpretation before complete 
fulfilment—So tested, literalism justified by the facts 
of our age—Restoration predictions fulfilling. (1) 

The civil emancipation of the Jews.—Mendelssohn 
—Voltaire—great revolution of 18th century—184S 
and subsequent events—(2) Jewish organization for 
national ends.—(3) Extensive transfer of wealth from 
the Gentiles to the Jews.—(4) Rapid rise of the Jews 
to power and eminence.—Their yjosition in education 
—their control of the press—political influence.—(5) 
Recent rapid increase in the number of the Jews.—(6) 
Concomitant judgments on the Gentile nations.—(7) 
These largely due, as predicted, to Jewish influence. 

—The Jews and modern pantheistic rationalism— 
Spinoza—Maimonides—the Jews and Socialism— 
Marx, Lasalle, et al. —the Jews in Russia—Testimo¬ 
nies concerning Jewish influence—Prof. Heuch— 

“The Nineteenth Century”—Herr Stocker—Prof. 
Delitzsch—Prof. Christlieb—Anticipated triumph of 
Jewish ideas over the Christian—Warning of Prof. 

Godet—of Prof. Ebrard.—(8) Signs of an approaching 
reestablishment of Jewish power in Palestine.— 

The decay of Turkey—“Anti-Semitism ”—dominant 
political principles—recent Jewish emigration move¬ 
ments toward Palestine—interest among the Gentiles 
in their condition—Present obstacles to the return to 
Palestine.—Recapitulation—The result of the test— 

A literal fulfilment of the restoration prophecies 
already begun—A new thing in history. . . 135-250 








XXII 


CONTENTS . 


CHAPTER V. 

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSIONS. 

TMsumS of the argument.—Anticipations of prophetic 
students for our age verified in the present state of 
the Jews.—Mede—Fleming—Bp. Newton—Faber— 
Conclusions. The credibility of the Scriptures—Their 
inspiration —Their genuineness and authenticity-- 
Their interpretation —Consequent anticipations for the 
future.—Reinstatement of Israel in Palestine—Ap¬ 
proaching overthrow of Gentile power—“pessimism ” 

—views of Van Oosterzee—of Chalmers—Coming 
judgment upon Israel—The advent of Christ there¬ 
with predicted, literal—Its apparent nearness—the 
Lord’s words—The salvatiou of all Israel—Conver¬ 
sion of the remnant of the Gentiles. . . . 251-279 

APPENDIX. 

Note I., The Jewish Question in France—Note II., Rem¬ 
nants of the Teu Tribes in Afghanistan and Arabia— 

Note III., Objections to a Literal Interpretation of 
the Promises to Israel—Note IV., The “Alliance Is¬ 
raelite Universelle”—Note V., The Financial Po¬ 
sition of the Jews—Note VI., The Jews in Educa¬ 
tion—Note VII., The Jews and the Press—Note 
VIII., The Jews in Political Positions—Note IX., 

The Comparative Ability of Jews and Englishmen— 

Note X., The Fertility of the Jewish Race—Note XI., 

The Jews and Modern Socialism—Note XII., The 
Colonization of Palestine—Note XIII., The Chronol¬ 
ogy of the Jewish Prophecies—Note XIV., Jewish 
Movements toward Christianity, . . . 283-329 



THE JEWS; 

OR, 

PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT, 


CHAPTER L 

SEPARATED FROM THE NATIONS. 

** He bath not dealt so with any nation.”—Ps. cxlvii, 20. 

It is an undisputed fact that the position of 
the Jews among the nations is without a paral¬ 
lel or likeness in the history of mankind. They . 
are a nation remarkable, in the first place, for 
their antiquity. No nation can trace back its 
lineage by the clear light of reliable history so 
far as they. In comparison with the Jews, the 
nations which are chiefly making the history of 
the world to-day, even the oldest of them, are 
but young. The days of Israel’s independence 
had already well gone by when Socrates and Pla¬ 
to were teaching in Greece. When Rome was 
founded, the Israelitish kingdom had long pass¬ 
ed the zenith of its power, and was far on the 
path of political decline. Less than a genera- 






2 


THE JEWS; OX, 


tion thereafter, the largest part of the nation 
went into a captivity and exile from which it 
has never yet returned. Before the days of 
Homer, in the dim antiquity of the Trojan 
war, Israel was already at the height of her 
royal glory. In a word, the Jews are able, by 
authentic documents, to follow back their history 
to a period more distant from the beginning 
of our era than the birth of Christ antedates 
the present time. 

With the outlines of their history before 
the time of Christ, all readers of the Bible 
are familiar. Dates are not in the early his¬ 
tory precisely known, but it is evident that, to 
speak in a general way, their history before the 
appearing of Christ, falls naturally into four pe¬ 
riods, each very nearly, if not exactly, four hun¬ 
dred and ninety years in duration. The first of 
these, of course, will be dated from the call of 
Abraham, and reach to the exodus from Egypt; 
the second from the exodus to the reism of Da- 

o 

vid; the third, from the reign of David to the 
restoration from Babylon ; the fourth from the 
restoration to the Christian era. Although the 
exact number of the years in each period can¬ 
not be made out, this apparently close relation 
of the chronology of their history to the divine¬ 
ly predicted period of 490 years, connected 
with the appearing of Messiah, the Prince, is a 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


3 


striking fact which may perhaps he more than 
accidental.* 

It is a very peculiar fact again, that although 
thus boasting a higher antiquity than any other 
nation in the world, yet for only about seven 
hundred out of a little more than three thousand 
years of their whole existence as a people, have 
they been a nation united and independent. And 
even if, passing by the secession and subsequent 
captivity of the ten tribes, we count the whole 
time from the exodus to the captivity of 
Judah as the time of Israelitisli independence, 
yet it appears that for about three-fourths of their 
whole national history, Israel has been without an 
independent national life, and for now eighteen 
hundred years a nation exiled and scattered 
in almost every land upon the face of the whole 
earth. And yet this strange experience has not 
obliterated a single feature peculiar to the na¬ 
tion. Here they are to-day, in all our cities, 
on all our streets, with every national character¬ 
istic and physical feature as distinct as when 
their long banishment began. History shows 
nothing like this. The phenomenon, however it 
may be explained, is absolutely unique. 

* The 490 years, the reader will hardly need to be 
reminded, is a period connected with the Jewish week 
of years, and the jubilee period, being seventy weeks 
of years, or ten jubilee periods. 





4 


THE JEWS; OR , 


The vigor and indestructibility of nationa* 
life which is shown by these facts, is a feature 
of their history which is to be noted in 
all ages. It has its cause, in part, no doubt, in 
the intense vitality of the individual Jew. It is 
* the uniform testimony of historians and statisti¬ 
cians, that everywhere and always the Jews have 
been found to exceed the Gentiles both in their 
natural fertility and in their longevity. Hence 
it is everywhere observed that they always tend 
to outgrow in numbers the Gentile nations 
among whom they may dwell. So long ago as 
the days of the oppression in Egypt, we find 
noted this national tendency to outnumber the 
Egyptian population.* The same characteristic 
reappears in the history of the nation after the 
return from Babylon. We are told that the 
number of those who then returned was less 
than 50,000,f and yet, by the time of Christ, 
despite many reverses and cruel persecutions, 
the Jews in Palestine were numbered by mill¬ 
ions, and a little later, at the time of the de¬ 
struction of Jerusalem by Titus, we are told 
that more than a million were gathered togeth¬ 
er in that city alone. Similar phenomena are 
to be observed in our own time, as we shall 
have occasio n to notice more fully further on.J 

* Ex i. 7. f Ezra, ii. 64. 

X See chap. iv.; also Herzog: ReaUEncyiclopadie; 
article, “ Israel, nachbiblische Gescliichte desselben ” 
Yii. Bd,, S. 244, ff. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


5 


This remarkable vigor of individual life is 
reproduced in the nation as an organism. The 
whole time that they lived in their own kind, 
by reason of the geographical position of that - 
land between the great powers of the ancient 
world, they were especially exposed to influ¬ 
ences which tended to destroy utterly the in¬ 
dividuality of national life, and in fact did so 
destroy nation after nation around them. And 
yet, though during eight hundred years repeat¬ 
edly subdued, and often treated by their con¬ 
querors with unsparing severity, the nation not 
only survived all this, but even in its last vain 
struggle against the overwhelming might of 
Rome, showed no sign that its vitality was in 
the least impaired by all it had passed through. 

But if the history of the Jews is remarkable 
in this respect so long as they remained in 
their own land, it is much more so since they 
have been, for now more than eighteen hundred 
years, an exiled nation. Throughout this whole 
time they have had no land that they could call 
their own, no universal bond of government; 
they have been exposed to climatic and to social 
influences the most diverse and often hurtful; 
again and again, as, e.g., under the Romans in 
the 1st and 2d centuries, under the Persians 
in the 6th, under the Crusaders in the 12th, and 
under Ferdinand and Isabella in the 15th centu- 






6 


THE JEWS; OR, 


ries, they have been made to suffer the most 
terrible and often decimating persecutions. 
Until quite lately, in almost all countries of 
Europe where they have been permitted to 
live at all, they have been compelled to live 
under hurtful restrictions, in narrow and un¬ 
wholesome quarters, their natural increase often 
limited by law. 

In a word, then, there is no influence 
which might be supposed to tend to the utter 
extinction of a people, which has not been 
brought to bear upon them with peculiar power, 
and that for centuries, as upon no other nation 
in history, and yet here they are among us to¬ 
day, with their national self-consciousness not 
in the least abated by this age-long experience 
* of exile, scattering and persecution; the Jew 
everywhere as much a Jew, as sharply dis¬ 
tinguished from all others, even in his external 
appearance, as he was when this long experience 
of exile and suffering began. 

So far from any symptoms appearing of an 
exhaustion of the early vigor of their national 
life, the most competent observers of modern 
history agree that the last hundred years has 
been marked, on the contrary, by something 
like a rejuvenation of this most ancient stock of 
Israel.* We say again, as before, history shows 

* See, e.g the striking remarks of Griitz: Geschichte 
der Juden , xi. Bd., S. 1, 2, 581, 582. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


7 

nothing like this. The phenomena which mark 
Israel’s long history stand alone and without 
their like in the records of the human race. 

But we have to note another fact no less 
striking and exceptional and of yet greater in¬ 
terest, namely, the immense influence which 
this people have had on the history of man¬ 
kind. Never at any time, except it be quite 
lately, have they numbered more than six or 
seven millions; throughout their whole his¬ 
tory, they have been a people despised and 
hated of all nations, and yet there is no 
doubt that, notwithstanding all this, they have 
exerted, and in one way and another, are still ex¬ 
erting a transforming and determining influence 
upon human life, beyond that of any nation that 
has ever lived upon the earth. This is the more 
remarkable that whereas, in the case of other 
nations, as, for example, Greece and Borne, 
their day of greatest influence was the day of 
their greatest national prosperity, and that in¬ 
fluence waned w r ith their declining fortune, with 
Israel, the reverse has been the case. With the 
accession of Behoboam, the son of Solomon, 
the Jewish state began a course of steady de¬ 
cay, but throughout this period, from soon after 
its beginning for several hundred years, were 
produced one after another, those wonderful 
writings of the Jewish prophets, wdiich to this 





8 


THE JEWS; OR , 


day so move the heart and so influence the life 
of Christendom. And then as the consummat¬ 
ing fact of all, we cannot forget that after all 
the prophets had come and gone, and Judea had 
sunk to be an insignificant province of the Ro¬ 
man empire, out of this same people arose that 
Jesus of Nazareth, whose shortlife of no more 
than three and thirty years, has undeniably 
proved, however any may explain it, to have been 
the turning point in human history, the most de¬ 
cisive and far-reaching crisis hitherto in the his¬ 
tory of mankind. There is not a single people of 
any note for active and widespread influence in 
the world to-day, which does not signify its ap¬ 
preciation of this fact by reckoning all its his¬ 
tory with reference to the year in which that 
Jewish carpenter was born. 

As to the nature and extent of the influence 
of the Jewish nation, much more might be said 
and will be said in the sequel. For the present, 
let it suffice to note a single point. Dr. A. A. 
Hodge, in his Outlines of Theology, calls atten¬ 
tion to the momentous and significant fact that 
the only theistic religions which have ever pre¬ 
vailed among men, are historically connected 
with those Jewish writings which collectively 
are known as the Christian Scriptures.* All 


* Outlines of Theology , Rewritten and enlarged, p. SO. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


9 


the monotheism in the world to-day, Jewish, 
Christian, and Mohammedan, has its source in 
this Jewish nation. So far as we can see, then, 
except for them, the world would have been 
to-day without a faith—at least in any organ¬ 
ized form as a religion—in the being of one 
personal God, the Creator and Governor of 
the world. Whatever, therefore, of influence 
the belief in the existence and government of 
such a Being has had on the history and destiny 
of man, it is strictly correct to say that that is 
the measure of the influence of the Jewish na¬ 
tion. And so, again, it is plain that as regards 
influence upon the practical life and specula¬ 
tive thought of men, as in the other respects 
noted, Israel holds a position, as compared with 
other nations, absolutely solitary, unapproached 
by any of the greatest and mightiest races of 
mankind ! 

This fact, in itself so remarkable, is the more 
so, that it was not to have been anticipated from 
anything in the Israelitish stock itself or in its 
early history. It cannot be ascribed to superior 
intellectual power; for, while we fully recognize 
the naturally high endowments of the Jewish 
race in this respect, there is no reason to believe 
that in this regard they were or are superior to 
other races that might be named. It can hard¬ 
ly be attributed to a deeper spirituality, as a 







10 


THE JEWS; OR, 


characteristic of the race, leading them more 
than others to seek after God. In this re¬ 
spect, again, it may be more than doubted 
whether they have been on the whole naturally 
superior to other races, such as the Hindoos, 
for example, or the ancient Persians. With¬ 
out joining at all with many “anti-Semites *’ in 
Europe and elsewhere, in indiscriminate abuse 
of the Jews, as if all alike were usurers and ex¬ 
tortioners, we shall not be held uncharitable in 
saying that the Jews certainly never have been 
nor are now noted for an unworldly spirit. It 
would probably be hard to find a race more ea¬ 
ger in the pursuit of worldly wealth and all that 
wealth can give, than are the Jews. Neither can 
we, with Renan, attribute this conquering Jew¬ 
ish monotheism to a “ monotheistic genius ” in 
the race. Their early history, as we learn it both 
from their own records and from other ancient 
testimonies, goes to prove the exact opposite of 
this theory. It has been clearly demonstrated, 
that the early Semites, so far from being distin¬ 
guished for their opposition to the idolatry and 
polytheism which already, with the first dawn 
of monumental history, we find prevailing in 
the Euphrates valley, were distinguished rather 
in this, that they, as compared with other 
neighboring races, more swiftly descended to a 
more awful depth of cruel and revolting idola- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


11 


try than any other race or people of whom his¬ 
tory has left a record. Prof. Ebrard, of Er¬ 
langen, has fitly described the state of the case 
in the following words: “ Those Euphrates- 
Semites must have been given over to a spirit 
of confusion out of the Abyss, as they declared 
everything which the conscience forbids and 
condemns as infamous and horrible, to be pre¬ 
cisely that which belonged to the service of the 
Godhead.” * And again, u It was no gradual 
declension from a purer knowledge of God to a 
knowledge less clear, as with the Persians, Indi¬ 
ans, Greeks and Egyptians. The rise of this re¬ 
ligion—the primitive Semitic heathenism—pre¬ 
supposes a wilful repetition of the original fall, 
a fall out of a state of simple sinfulness into a 
diabolic and demoniac hardness of heart, an ac¬ 
cursed revolt against both God and the con¬ 
science. 5 f To the same effect Prof. Zdckler 
tells us, <£ History teaches us with the utmost 
plainness that the Semitic peoples—Israel not 
excepted—were rather distinguished by a natu¬ 
ral inclination to a gross, sensual, idolatrous 
superstition, and a strong tendency to polythe- 


* ApologetiTc, Zweiter Auflage, ii. Bd., S. 193. 
t lb., S. 177. In the section from which we quote, 
Prof. Ebrard gives ample proof of this heavy charge 
against the early Semitic religion. 






12 


THE JEWS; OR , 


-*sm, instead of the monotheistic instinct which 
is claimed for them.” * 

In full accord with all this, is the testimony 
of the books of the Old Testament. They 
uniformly represent the nation as, quite until 
the captivity, despite all the faithful instruc¬ 
tions and warnings of the prophets who from 
time to time arose among them, again and 
again returning to the revolting cruelties of the 
worship of Moloch and the unnatural ob¬ 
scenities of the cult of Astarte, the u queen of 
heaven.” And this, according to their own 
historians, was their character as a nation during 
the whole thirteen hundred years from the call of 
Abraham to the Babylonian captivity. Herein, 
assuredly, was no clear evidence of a “ monothe¬ 
istic genius.” f Hot so can we account for the 
undoubted fact that the existing monotheistic 
religions all have their origin in Israel. On the 
contrary, that from a nation with such historical 
antecedents, such almost ineradicable tendencies 

* Missions Zeitschrift , Dec., 1880 ; article, “DieUrge- 
etalt der Religion.” 

t And yet a Jewish writer in The Century , lauding her 
race as the “pioneers of progress,” tells us in illustra¬ 
tion that the “sublime conception” of “the unity of 
the Creative Force,” as presented in the Jewish religion, 
was “ arrived at intuitively in a prehistoric age, by the 
genius of the race.” !!—The Century , Feb., 1883; article, 
“ The Jewish Problem,” p. 609. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


13 


to the grossest forms of idolatry and moral de¬ 
basement, should have come all the monotheistic 
faith that there is in the world to-day, is a phe¬ 
nomenon so extraordinary that it may well com¬ 
mand the attention of every thoughtful man. 

This combination of phenomena as thus set 
forth, which the history of the Jews undeniably 
presents, all will admit to be, as affirmed in the 
beginning, without its parallel in history. It 
is not what one might have anticipated as very 
possible, in the ordinary course of nature, but 
so exactly the reverse, that the facts have seem¬ 
ed to very many profound thinkers to require 
for their explanation the supposition of a su¬ 
pernatural power, as working in some special, 
mysterious connection with the fortunes of the 
Jewish race. In any case they are such as to 
give the greatest possible significance to yet one 
other fact, in itself still more remarkable than 
any hitherto mentioned. The Jews alone * 
among the nations, have had their history writ¬ 
ten in advance. There is scarcely a feature of 
consequence in their most exceptional experi¬ 
ence'for almost four thousand years past, how¬ 
ever improbable any such feature may have been, 
but we find it predicted with an exactness and 
precision which admits of no correction, even now 
that so much of this prophetic history has passed 
out of the region of prediction into that of ac- 




14 


THE JEWS. 


eomplished fact. And this statement, be it 
carefully observed, is not materially affected by 
any question which even the most destructive 
criticism of the day has raised, as to the date 
and authorship of any of the books in which 
this prophetic history is contained. Whether 
Deuteronomy, e.g., were written in the time of 
Moses, or in the reign of Josiah, it remains 
none the less true that it contains a most im¬ 
pressive epitome of all that has been most char¬ 
acteristic and exceptional in the history of the 
Jews from the time the book was written to this 
present day.* 

To the nature and extent of these predictions 
so far as they have been yet fulfilled, and the 
evidence of that fulfilment, we shall direct our 
attention in the next chapter. 

*At the utmost, the conclusions of the most radical 
critics would only require us to write above, 2,500, in¬ 
stead of 4,000 years. But a history written 2,500 years 
in advance is as significant a fact, as if written 4,000 
years in advance. The one is as certainly beyond mere 
human power and knowledge as the other. The ap¬ 
parently miraculous fact of foreknowledge, and of pre¬ 
diction based upon it, which the radical critics are so 
desperately anxious to get rid of, remains a stubborn 
fact, even after they have done their worst, and have 
had their way with their wildest speculations as to the 
dates and authors of the Old Testament books. 



CHAPTER II. 


FORETOLD AND FULFILLED. 


“ All Israel have transgressed thy law ; . . . . therefore 
the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written 
in the law of Moses.”—D an. ix. 11. 

The predictions concerning Israel which we 
find in the Holy Scriptures have respect to four 
particulars, namely : the people, their land, the 
Holy City, and lastly, the duration of the ca¬ 
lamities foretold. The predictions regarding 
the first three particulars are of two classes, 
namely, predictions of evil , and, in the second 
place, predictions of Messing and prosperity. 
In the present chapter w T e shall confine our at¬ 
tention to prophecies of the former class, and 
also to those which were delivered after the na¬ 
tional life of the people was begun. These 
predictions of evil to come upon Israel are 
not only very numerous, but very specific and 
detailed. They are not mere general prophe¬ 
cies of evil and calamity, such as, in view of the 
ordinary course of human affairs, might be safe¬ 
ly predicted of any nation. On the contrary, 
they tell us very minutely the precise nature of 
the various calamities and miseries which should 
come upon Israel, and, according to the under- 

(is) 





16 


THE JEWS; OR , 


standing of many eminent interpreters, e^'en 
intimate the length of time during which the 
nation should continue in the low condition fore¬ 
told. It is further to be noted, that when we 
combine the various features of these proph¬ 
ecies in one picture, they represent an ex¬ 
perience which, up to the time that the pre¬ 
dictions were uttered, had been the lot of no 
nation on the face of the earth. But it is no 
less true and indisputable that, unlikely as it 
might have seemed in the beginning, these pre¬ 
dictions have in every respect found a fulfil¬ 
ment so minute and literal, that in many cases 
the language of the prophets reads like history. 

First of all, we have predictions that this 
people would forsake the God who had brought 
them out of the land of Egypt, and go after 
idols. Thus it stands written : 

“ When I shall have brought them into the land 
which I sware unto their fathers, .... and they shall 
have eaten and tilled themselves, and waxen fat; then will 
they turn unto other gods and serve them, and provoke 
me, and break my covenant; . . . . for I know their 
imagination which they go about, even now, before I 
have brought them into the land which I sware.” * 

How truly all these words came to pass, their 
own historians tell us with abundant fulness. 
So universal was the apostasy from the divinely 


* Deut. xxxi. 20, 21. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


11 


given law and the ignoring of the covenant* 
that the radical critics have attempted to base 
upon this fact their theory that the Levitical 
legislation could not have originated until after 
the exile. For how could the covenant and 
law have been so utterly ignored, they ask, if 
it had been in existence at all? This question 
has been answered by others, and it were aside 
from our present purpose to deal with it here. 
We only remark that in so far as it is a fact 
that the law was so set aside, it illustrates in a 
very impressive manner the fulfilment of a 
very improbable prediction. 

It was distinctly foretold that this apostasy of 
the people would not be merely partial and su¬ 
perficial. It was predicted that the whole na¬ 
tion, except a “ very small remnant,” would be 
given over to blindness and hardness of heart. 
Thus, in the most impressive language, the 
prophet Isaiah is told that this is to be the di¬ 
rect issue and effect of his faithful ministry to 
this evil nation. For his prophetic commission 
was given him in these words: 

“Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but under¬ 
stand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make 
the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, 
and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, ana 
hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, 
and convert, and be healed.” * 


* Is. vi. 9, 10. 






18 


THE JEWS; OR , 


That this prediction has been fulfilled in the 
Jewish nation, will need no demonstration to 
any person who believes in Christ. So blind 
were they, that, despite the warnings of their 
prophets, they stubbornly persisted in idolatry 
till judgment came, and they were crushed by 
the Babylonian power. So blind were they, 
again, that when their promised Messiah came, 
even as predicted by the prophets, yet they 
recognized him not, but caused him to be put 
to death for a blasphemer. And to this day 
the words of the apostle Paul are as true of the 
great mass of the Jews, as they were in his day, 

“ Even unto tliis day, when Moses is read, the veil is 
upon their heart.” * “ Blindness in part is happened 

to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” t 

It was further predicted that because of their 
sins they should be made subject to their ene¬ 
mies, their cities besieged, and they destroyed 
with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. 
Thus, centuries before these calamities over¬ 
took them, it was predicted : 

“If ye shall despise my statutes, .... I will even 
appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning 
ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow oi 
heart, . . . . and I will set my face against you, and 
ye shall be slain before your enemies; they that hate 
you shall reign over you. 

• •••••*# ( • 

“ When ye are gathered together within your cities, 

f Bom. xi. 25. 


* 2 Cor. iii. 15. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


19 


I will send the pestilence among yon ; . . . . and when 
I have broken the staff of your bread, .... they shall 
deliver you your bread again by weight; and ye shall 
eat, and not be satisfied.” * 

More vividly still are tlie same future tribu¬ 
lations depicted in Deut. xxviii. 51: 

“The man that is tender among you, and very deli¬ 
cate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and tow¬ 
ard the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant 
of his children which he shall leave: so that he will not 
give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom 
he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the 
sie"e, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies 
shall distress thee in thy gates.” 

Further, it was also predicted that as the final 
issue of all these great calamities, they should 
be taken out of their own land and removed 
into all the nations of the world. This threat, 
as every reader of the Bible knows, is repeated 
again and again, and with all possible emphasis. 
Such a scattering of a people is not, be it noted, 
a necessary result of foreign domination. The 
Homans, for example, to whom the last and 
most extensive dispersion of the Jews was due, 
conquered many nations who were generally 
allowed to remain in their own land, on the sim¬ 
ple condition of submitting to the Homan gov¬ 
ernment. But in these threats of foreign con- 


* Lev. xxvi. 15-17, 25, 26. 




20 


THE JEWS; OR , 


quest as made against Israel, it is always in¬ 
cluded that they should not be allowed even 
this sorry consolation of remaining, although a 
subject people, in their own land. They were 
to be scattered among all nations, and many of 
them sold into slavery. Thus we read: 

“The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before 
thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against 
them, and flee seven ways before them; and shalt be 
removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Ye shall 
be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to 
possess it, and the Lord shall scatter thee among all 
people, from one end of the earth even unto the other.” * 
“Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto an¬ 
other people, and thine eyes shall look and fail with 
longing for them all the day long; and there shall be 

no might in thy hand.Thou shalt beget sons 

and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they 
shall go into captivity.” f 

All this, unlikely as it may have seemed, has 
been fulfilled, as every one knows, to the very 
letter. Again and again, before the final over¬ 
throw of the Jewish state, about eighteen hun¬ 
dred years ago, were Jerusalem and the other cit¬ 
ies of Israel subjected to siege by foreign power, 
and to all the accompanying horrors of famine 
and pestilence, in the exact form predicted. The 
Bible record tells us how in the siege under 
Nebuchadnezzar “the children and sucklings 


* Deut. xxviii. 25, 63, 64. 


fib. vss. 32, 41. 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


21 


swooned ” in the famine in the streets of the 
city, saying to their mothers, “ Where is corn 
and wine \ ” while “ the hands of the piti • 
ful. women” cooked their own children for 
food.* And again and again thereafter was 
that experience repeated, as long as the Is- 
raelitish nation continued to inhabit the 
land. Thus, especially under Antiochus the 
Great, b.c. 168, the fourteenth siege of Jerusa¬ 
lem, “the whole city was pillaged, about ten 
thousand captives taken, the city walls de¬ 
stroyed, the finest buildings burned, the altar 
defiled by the sacrifice of swine, the Jews for¬ 
bidden the practice of their religion, and cruel¬ 
ly tormented.” With the story of the siege of 
Jerusalem under Titus, a.d. 70, as told us by 
the eyewitness Josephus, every student of his¬ 
tory is familiar. The Jews, gathered together 
in the city in a great multitude to celebrate the 
feast of the passover, were decimated by famine 
and pestilence, and fell under the sword, as the 
Lord Jesus had predicted, in immense num¬ 
bers, till it is said that no less than 1,100,000 
perished. Multitudes were carried into captivity, 
either to be put to a miserable death in the amphi¬ 
theatres, or to drag out a more miserable existence 
in slavery. So many were the captives, that the 


*Lam. ii. 11, 12; iv. 10. 



22 THE JEWS; OR, 

historian tells us that the markets of the Ho¬ 
man empire were u glutted” with slaves.* So 
terrible a calamity never befell any nati >n. 
The author of the article on the “ Biblical His¬ 
tory of the Jews,” in Herzog’s Encyclopedia, 
says truly, that “ the history of the world knows 
not a greater catastrophe than the death-strug¬ 
gle of the Jewish nation with the Homan 
world-power.” f Yet even this was not the end. 

Again in a.d. 116, under Trajan, a terrible re¬ 
volt of the Jews against the Homans, broke out 
in all Horth Africa, where great numbers 
had been carried captive, and was only sup¬ 
pressed after again multitudes of the miser¬ 
able people had been put to death. Yet an¬ 
other and the last attempt at regaining their 
national independence, was made by the Jews 
under Bar-Kocheba, which was at last put 
down in a.d. 135, after another bloody strug¬ 
gle, in which no less than 580,000 Jews are 
said to have been put to death,f often with 

* “ The Romans, weary of the work of slaughter, 
spared the people, but sold all the rest as slaves, 
though they bore but a low price, the market being 
glutted and few purchasers found; the number sold as 
slaves was incalculable.” — Milman : History of the 
Jews, New York, A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1880. Yol. 
ii., p. 882. 

f Real-EncyTclopadie, vii. Bd., S. 221. 

t So Dion Cassius, quoted in abovn-cited work, p, 
443 . 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


'23 


most frightful torments. The surviving rem¬ 
nant were again sold into grievous slavery and 
deported from the country, the Holy City wag 
razed, and for two hundred years every Jew 
was forbidden upon pain of death, except upon 
a single day in each year, to come within sight 
of the city. u There shall be great distress in 
the land and wrath upon this people ! ” So the 
Lord Jesus had said.—Did prediction ever come 
to pass with a more awful literality ? * 

But not only was this most remarkable scat¬ 
tering and exile of the whole nation predicted, 
but the prophets give also the most vivid aud 
terrible pictures of what should be their ex¬ 
periences in this exile. They should be, for 
example, always “ oppressed and spoiled 

“ Thou slialt. be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, 
and no man shall save thee. . . . The stranger that is 
within thee shall get up above thee very high, and 
thou shalt come down very low. . . .Thou shalt serve 
thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, 
in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in 
want of all things. ” t 

In the presence of such untold miseries and ca- 

* “Jerusalem might almost seem to be a place under 
a peculiar curse: it has probably witnessed a greater 
portion of human misery than any other spot under the 
Bun.” —Milman : History of the Jews , p. 385. 

t Deut. xxviii. 29, 43, 48. 








24 


THE JEWS; OR , 


larriities, we are told that all their former war¬ 
like spirit would give place to the most abject 
timidity and fear. Thus we read, 

“Among these nations slialt thou find no ease, 
neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the 
Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing 
of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang 
in doubt before thee ; and thou shalt fear day and 
night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: in the 
morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even ! 
and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were 
morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou 
shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou 
shalt see. * 

“ Upon them that are left alive of you I will send a 
faintness into their hearts in the lands of their ene¬ 
mies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase 
them. ” f 

As to the duration of this sore tribulation, it 
was also no less clearly said that it would be no 
transient experience, followed by a quick de¬ 
liverance ; on the contrary, it was written, 

“ If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this 
law . . . that thou mayest fear this glorious and fear¬ 
ful name, the Lord tiiy God; then the Lord will 
make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy 
seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance J 

It is matter of familiar history that the above 


* Deut. xxviii. 65-G7. 
f Deut. xxviii. 58, 59. 


f Lev. xxvi. 86. 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


25 


statements of the ancient prophets accurately de¬ 
scribe the experience of the Jewish nation. 
Their “plagues” were to be “of long con¬ 
tinuance”; they have already continued for 
more than two thousand years. During 
this whole period, in one place or another, 
these words have been true of this one exiled 
nation, and of no other. In the most literal truth 
they have been “ oppressed and spoiled ever¬ 
more, ” even as the prophet said that they 
would be. The writer may be here permitted 
to repeat in substance what he has elsewhere 
written,* as descriptive in brief of the whole 
history of the Jews from the time of the de¬ 
struction of Jerusalem by Titus down to the 
present century. “ Under pagan Home their 
lot was hard: under Christian Eotne it be¬ 
came harder still. Constantine, at once on his 
accession to power, began to take action 
against them, and they soon became, to all 
practical intents, an outlawed people. Jus¬ 
tinian, whose code became the basis of the civil 
law of Europe, expressly excluded Jews from 
the provisions of that code. From that time 
on, with local and temporary alleviations and 
exceptions, they became more and more the 

* In the New Englander, May, 1881; article, “ The 
Jewish Question in Europe.” Republished in the 
British and Foreign Evangelical Review , October, 1881, 






26 


TIIE JEWS ; OR , 


objects of the most unreasoning and pitiless 
hatred that was ever visited upon any people. 
Again and again the blind fury of the igno¬ 
rant populace was stirred up by slanderous ac¬ 
cusations of the most atrocious crimes. Noth¬ 
ing was too bad to be believed of a Jew. 
They practiced, it was said, the black art; they 
would steal the sacramental wafer, that they 
might insult it with spitting and with piercing 
in their assemblies; they celebrated the pass- 
over with the blood of Christian children whom 
for this purpose they kidnapped, tortured and 
crucified. 

“ The effect of such malignant slanders was 
what was to have been expected. Confisca¬ 
tion, violence, torture, massacre, banishment 
and every kind of ingenious and system¬ 
atic insult, were the common lot of the Jews 
throughout Europe. From the beginning of 
the Crusades, especially, began for them a mid¬ 
night watch of terror, which lasted, with only 
an occasional lightening of the gloom, for many 
centuries.” “ The mad enthusiasts of the first 
crusade,” Gibbon tells us, “found their first and 
most easy warfare against the Jews, the mur¬ 
derers of the Son of God. In the trading 
cities of the Moselle and the Rhine, their 
colonies were numerous and rich ; and they en¬ 
joyed, under the protection of the emperor, 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


27 


the free exercise of their religion. At Verdun, 
Spires, Treves, Mentz, Worms, many thou¬ 
sands were pillaged and massacred ; nor had 
they felt a more 'bloody stroke since the per¬ 
secution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by 
the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a 
feigned and transient conversion ; but the more 
obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the 
fanaticism of the Christians, barricaded their 
houses, and precipitating themselves, their fam¬ 
ilies, and their wealth, into the rivers or the 
flames, disappointed the malice, or at least the 
avarice of their implacable foes.” * 

From that time on, the Jew existed in Europe 
but to be plundered. In the German States they 
were reckoned the slaves of the emperor. If 
in any state they enjoyed a brief toleration, it 
was a privilege purchased at the expense of 
enormous taxation. In any case oppres¬ 
sion and plunder was the rule for the Jew. 
How it was at the hands of brutal mobs, 
hounded on by fanatic priests; now, in a for¬ 
mal way and on a more extensive scale, by the 
“ most Christian ” monarehs of Europe, who 
after the fashion of the time, were wont to 
plunder, banish, torture and murder Jews as it 
chanced to please them, under the high name 

* Decline and Fall of the Homan Empire, vol. v., 

p. 554. 






23 


THE JEWS; OR , 


of Christ and law! In 1290 they were ex* 
pelled from England, and were not allowed to 
return for about four hundred years. In 1395 
they were expelled from France, and in 1192, 
at the instigation of the bloody Torquemada, 
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain—where the 
Jews had for some centuries enjoyed an excep¬ 
tional degree of peace and prosperity—expelled 
them from that land under circumstances of atro¬ 
cious cruelty which will ever cover the name of 
Ferdinand and Isabella with inextinguishable 
infamy. 

So it went on for the first half of the 
present millennium. And while the bloody 
severity of these persecutions was somewhat 
mitigated by the Reformation, through the 
weakening of the power of papal supersti¬ 
tion, yet it must be confessed that with 
here and there an exception, the Protestant 
princes of Europe showed little more willing¬ 
ness than their Catholic predecessors to accord 
to the Jew the common rights of man. In 
many countries, as already mentioned, they 
were not allowed to live at all. Where they 
were tolerated, it was onlv on the condition of 
submitting to every kind of systematic indig¬ 
nity, insult and oppression, from both rulers 
and people. In many places, as in Russia still 
to-day, they were compelled to wear a peculiar 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


29 


and distinguishing dress. Their residences 
were confined by law to certain narrow and 
unwholesome districts of the cities. They 
were forbidden to be out of their houses after 
a certain early hour of the evening, and on the 
festival days of the church, they were in many 
places not allowed to leave their houses at all. 
The Jew was compelled throughout a large 
part of Europe to pay a tax every time that he 
crossed the frontier of any of the numerous 
petty States into which Europe at that time was 
subdivided. In some parts of France, he was , 
required to pay the same toll as a donkey, every 
time that he entered a gate, or crossed a bridge. 

In most if not all countries, they were prohibit¬ 
ed from owning land ; they were excluded from 
all universities and schools, and in a word, from 
almost every honorable and useful occupation 
of life. And whatever they might, in any way, 
good or bad, succeed in earning, the ingenuity 
of the statesmen and kings of Europe, was ex¬ 
ercised in devising new ways whereby they 
might rob them of it under the forms of Chris¬ 
tian law. * 

Could event answer to prediction more pre¬ 
cisely and accurately than this history has 

* Prof. Griitz Las given a brief extract from the writ¬ 
ings of a Jewush poet of the last century, one Ephraim 
Kuh, which well illustrates the feeling, in those times, of 











30 


THE JEWS; OR, 


answered to the predictions of the Jewish 
prophets, for the whole period since the Jewish 
state was overthrown ? “ Thou shalt be op¬ 
pressed and crushed evermore ! ” “ The Lord 

will make thy plagues wonderful , . . . and of 
long continuance ! ” How true it has proved ! 

As the result of these so terrible and unparal¬ 
leled calamities, Israel was further told that 
they should become a people few in number. 
It was written, 

“Ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as 
the stars of heaven for multitude ; because thou would- 
est not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.’’ * 

both Jews and Christians. It may be literally rendered 
thus : 

Toll-gatherer. —“Thou, Jew, must pay as toll, three 

thalers! 

Jew. —“ Three thalers ! so much money I Good 
sir, wherefore ? 

Toll-gatherer. —“Is’t that thou askest yet? Because 

thou art a Jew ! 

Wert thou a Turk, a heathen or an athe¬ 
ist, 

Then would we not demand a single far¬ 
thing ; 

But as thou art a Jew, w r e have to fleece 
thee! 

Jew. —“ Here is the money ! Did your Christ 
this teach you ? ” 

Geschichte der Juden , xi. Bd., S. 149. 

* Deut. xxviii. 62. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


31 

Like all the rest, this prediction has been ful¬ 
filled also. Basnage estimated, nearly two hun¬ 
dred years ago, that the number of the Jews, 
whicn in the times of the kingdom may have 
been as high as seven or eight million, had be¬ 
come reduced at that time to not more than 
three million.* That it is much greater now, 
no one can doubt; but of that, more in the 
sequel, f 

Such, then, has been the lot of the Jewish 
nation for centuries. No nation has ever ex¬ 
isted of which such experiences are recorded. 
As the consequence of all, the Jew has become 
precisely what the prophet again said that he 
would become, “ an astonishment, a proverb, 
and a by-word among all nations.” £ The very 
word “ Jew” has become a term of contempt, 
and the name of this people, of whom He came 
whom we adore as incarnate God and Saviour, 
has come to be used, as when we speak of 
u jewing” a man, as a synonyme for all that is 
most base in character and dishonorable in busi¬ 
ness ! 

Other predictions concerning the long tribu¬ 
lation of the nation might be added, all of which 
have been in like manner most minutely and 

* Basnage: History of the Jews, London, 1700, 
chap, xxviii., sec. 15. 

f See chap. iv. 


t I)eut. xxviii. 37. 








THE JEWS; OR , 


32 

literally fulfilled. For example, Ezekiel, 
prophesying the downfall of the throne of 
Judah, declared that the diadem of the house 
of David should' not be restored again in all 
this period of Israel’s abasement; “it shall be 
no more, until he come whose right it is, 
and I will give it him.” * So indeed it has 
been. The attempts made to restore the king¬ 
dom lrave thus far only rendered the more con¬ 
spicuous, by their failure, the fulfilment of the 
ancient prediction. It is true that a kingdom 
was established in Jerusalem in the second 
century before Christ, but the kings were not of 
the royal house of David, nor even of the royal 
tribe of Judah. And now for full two thousand 
years no one of any tribe of Israel has borne 
the name of king over the Jewish nation in 
Jerusalem. Hosea, like Ezekiel after him, had 
said that the children of Israel should “ abide 
many days without a king,”f and so it has come 
to pass. 

In addition to all this, the prophets foretold 
that the privileges of God’s grace which the 
Jews had so abused, should be taken from them, 
and during the whole period of their rejection, 
should be transferred to others. Thus we 
read in the book of Isaiah, of a time when 


* Ezek. xxi. 25-27. 


t Hos. iii. 4. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


33 


God would say, “ Behold me ! behold me ! ” to 
a people that was not called by His name; * 
while to the same effect the Lord Jesus said to 
the nation, that because of their rejection of 
Him, the kingdom of God should be taken from 
them, and “ given to a nation bringing forth the 
fruits thereof.” f To these predictions of the 
external spiritual condition of Israel during this 
period of their rejection, Hosea adds the remark¬ 
able declaration that while Israel should be cured, 
indeed, at last of idolatry, they should yet abide 
a long time equally without the ordinances of 
religion as given them by God in the beginning. 
For we read, 

“The children of Israel shall abide many days with¬ 
out a king, and without a prince, and without a sacri¬ 
fice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and 
without teraphim.” f 

Ho words could more exactly describe the 
condition of Israel during this long period 
wherein they have had no king. From the 
days of the Babylonian restoration, they have 
been u without an image, and without ter¬ 
aphim.” That judgment of the Babylonian 
captivity proved to be the end of idolatry with 
the Jews. But it had been said besides that 
they should also, during this same long time, 


* Is. lxv. 1. 

8 


f Matt. xxi. 43. 


J Hos. iii. 4. 








34r 


THE JEWS; OR 


have neither priest or sacrifice. That is, the 
ancient ritual should cease. So, also, did this 
come to pass. For now more than eighteen 
hundred years, ever since the destruction of 
Jerusalem by Titus, have the Jews, as every 
one knows, remained without priest clad with 
ephod, and without a sacrifice. 

But we need not further multiply illustra¬ 
tions. It is simply a matter of strict historical 
fact that every word of evil to come upon the 
nation of Israel, threatened and predicted ages . 
ago in the prophets, has been fulfilled to the 
letter. 

There was, however, more than these threats 
against th q people, in the writings of the prophets. 
The same writers who so minutely and with 
such marvelous accuracy portrayed in advance 
the history of the nation for centuries, in all 
wherein that history has been most peculiar and 
exceptional, with no less exactness added yet 
other predictions concerning the condition of 
their land and of the Holy City , during this long 
period of the nation’s exile. 

As regards the land, these predictions may 
be summed up in one word. It was to become 
u utterly desolate,” and so continue, as long as 
the judgment remained upon the nation. As 
in the case of the prophecies concerning the 
people, the description of the circumstances of 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


35 

tliis desolation is given with great minuteness. 
“ The land,” we are told, u shall not yield her 
increase, neither the trees of the land, their 
fruits.” * It should lie desolate and untilled, 
and thorns and briers should cover it. This is 
vividly set forth by Isaiah, who predicts that 

“ Every place shall be, where there were a thousand 
vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for 
briers and thorns. With arrows and with bows shall 
men come thither; because all the land shall become 
briers and thorns.” f 

And still further, to follow the more accurate 

✓ 

translation of Prof. Delitzsch, 

“ All hills that were accustomed to be hoed with the 
hoe, thou wile not go to them for fear of thorns and 
thistles : and it has become a gathering place for oxen, 
and a treading place for sheep.” J 

That is, the vineyards and fields which were 
the most valuable and highly tilled, should be¬ 
come utterly desolate, overgrown with thorns 
and thistles, so as to become here a pasture 
for herds and flocks, and there a haunt of 
wild animals, a resort of the hunter. The 
cause of this desolation of the land, w T ould nat¬ 
urally be its depopulation. For it is also said 
that, during the whole period of Israel’s rejection, 

* Lev. xxvi. 20. f Is. vii. 23, 24. 

I See Commentary on Isaiah , loc, cit, 






36 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the land, notwithstanding its natural fertility; 
and its geographical position, so accessible to all 
the great markets of the world, should yet be 
almost wholly bereft of population. Although 
it should be in the hands of foreign nations, 
the people of those nations should not in any 
number inhabit the land. Its towns and cities 
should either be utterly laid waste, or left with¬ 
out inhabitants. Thus we read, 

“ I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanct¬ 
uaries unto desolation.I will bring the land 

into desolation ; and your enemies which dwell therein 
shall be astonished at it.” * 

And this would be no temporary and brief 
desolation. The desolations would be for 
“ many generations.” f When once begun, they 
should continue during the whole period of 
Israel’s hardening. For we read again, 

“ Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and 
briers ; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous 
city ; because the palaces shall be forsaken ; the multi¬ 
tude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall 
be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of 
flocks ; until the Spirit he poured out upon us from on 
high.” I 

During this whole time the inhabitants of the 
land, it was predicted, should be “few,” and 


* Lev. xxvi. 31. f Is. lxi, 4. 


I Is. xxxii. 13—15, 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


37 


the highways lie “ desolate ” and forsaken ; * 
there should be “ a great forsaking in the midst of 
the land “ many houses ” should be“ desolate, 
even great and fair, without inhabitant.” f 
Where once were fruitful fields and populous 
towns, should be only pasture for flocks and 
herds ; “ the waste places of the fat ones shall 
nomad shepherds eat.” $ In a word, such 
should become the state of the land that it 
should be a matter of astonishment to all who 
should behold it. It was written, u Every one 
that passeth thereby shall be astonished at 
it.” § 

Such predictions as these with regard to 
the condition of the land, as every reader of 
the Bible knows, might be cited indefinitely. 
And the fulfilment of these prophecies concern¬ 
ing the land, has undeniably been as literal and 
exact as that of those concerning the people. 

Yet in themselves they were most unlikely 
to come to pass. It was naturally to have 
been expected, that however the original in¬ 
habitants of the land might be scattered, still, a 
land so fertile and productive, in the very centre 
of the great populations of the world, would 
none the less be filled with other people who 

* Lev. xxvi. 22 ; cf., Is. xxxiii. 8. f Is. vi. 12 ; v. 9. 

J Is. v. 17. Prof. Delitzsch’s translation. 

§ See Jer. xviii. 16. 




38 


THE JEWS; OR , 


should sow its fields and reap its harvests. But 
more than two thousand years ago it was predict¬ 
ed that this should not be so; and thus, improb¬ 
able as it must once have seemed, that land has 
now for centuries been “waste and desolate in the 
sight of all that pass by its cities and villages 
lying in ruins, overgrown with thorns and 
thistles; “ houses, great and fair,” stand with¬ 
out inhabitant, needing in many cases, we are 
told, but little repair to make them fit again for 
habitation ; and yet no people dwell in them. 
The “nomad shepherd,” foretold by Isaiah, the 
Bedouin of the desert, is the dread and the 
scourge of the few inhabitants who would there 
strive peacefully to cultivate the land. 

The contrast with the former condition 
of things in the land is most impressive and 
suggestive. In the time of the census given us 
in Num. xxvi., according to the estimate of 
Lieut. Conder, of the Palestine Exploration 
Society, the population of the land must have 
been not less than 2,500,000. In some parts of 
the land it was as high as 700 to the square 
mile, and averaged throughout 300 to the 
square mile, or nearly the present density of 
the population of England and Wales.f In the 


* Ezek. xxxvi. 34. 

t Handbook to the Bible, pp. 271, 272. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


39 


days of Solomon we find the fighting men of 
the nation numbered at 1,300,000, which gives, 
according to Lieut. Conder’s estimate, a total 
population of 5,000,000, in a region where now 
are not more than about 650,000.* It is there¬ 
fore no mere figure of speech, hut something 
very like historic accuracy, when Isaiah, after 
predicting that there should be “ a great for¬ 
saking in the midst of the land,” illustrates it by 
saying that yet in it should remain “ a tenth ?'f 
As regards the marvelous depopulation of a 
fruitful land, the prophecies have thus been 
as literally fulfilled as those with regard to 
the fortunes of the people. 

As for the condition of the land, one needs 
only to take up any one of the numerous 
modern books of travel in Palestine, to see 
how, according to the most unanimous and un¬ 
impeachable testimony, every feature of the 
prophetic picture has become a matter of his¬ 
toric and visible fact. In confirmation of this 
statement, we might cite the testimony of almost 
any of the narratives of travel in Palestine with 
which our current literature abounds. Thus, a 
writer in the London Times , quoted in the 
Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Explora¬ 
tion Fund, Oct., 1880, pp. 211, 212, tells us, 

* See Handbook to the Bible , p. 281. 

t Is. vi. 12, 13. 



40 


THE JEWS; OR , 


“ Nothing can well exceed the desolateness of much 
of it. Treeless it is for twenty or thirty miles together ; 
forests which did exist thirty years ago, ( c . q .,on Mount 
Carmel and Mount Tabor,) fast disappearing; rich 
p>lains of the finest garden soil asking to be cultivated, 
at best scratched up a few inches deep in patches, with 
no hedges or boundaries ; mountain terraces, natural or 
artificially formed, ready to be planted with vines ;. . . 
no pretence at roads except from Jaffa to Jerusalem, 
and this like a cart road over a ploughed field; the rest 
at best like sheep-walks on the Downs of Sussex, but 
for the most part like the dry bed of the most rocky 
river, where amid blocks of stone each makes his way 
as best he can; . . . nothing upon wheels, not even a 
barrow, to be met with in a ride of over three hundred 
miles.” 

A similar report of the state of the land is 
given by the Rev. Dr. Porter, in his Giant 
Cities of Bashan . Speaking of the region of 
Sharon and Carmel, he says, “ Towns and vil¬ 
lages, which thickly studded in ancient days 
the inland plain and mountain side, are gone. 
Corn-fields, olive-groves, and vineyards, are now 
few and far between, and even the pastures are 
deserted, save by the flocks of a few poor no¬ 
mads.” * Attempting to ascend Tabor, he found 
the summit “ broad, strewn with ruins, and 
covered with thickets of dwarf oak and prickly 
shrubs. From among the ruins and thickets 
jackals started, now again a wild boar, and then, 


* Giant Cities of Bashan, p. 227. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


41 


out of an obscure corner in a dark vault, bound¬ 
ed a panther, and, turning round, growled at 
the unwonted intrusion into his solitude.” Of 
Southern Palestine, he says: “ The words of 
Jeremiah constantly recurred to my mind, as I 
rode across desolate plains and among desolate 

hills.It is desolate, without man, without 

beast. Men, beasts and birds alike seemed to 
have deserted it.” * Riding through Bashan, 
the land once held by the half tribe of Manas- 
seh, he tells us that in a ride of twenty miles, 
alon^ beside the old Roman road from'Damascus 
to Bostra, he did not see anywhere a human 
being.f In the same region, he tells us again, 
that at one place, in one moment he could 
count within sight live villages, all entirely des¬ 
olate. Of a view from a hill overlooking the 
Sea of Galilee, he writes that “ where, in the 
time of Christ, there were no less than ten cities 
and ninety villages, in the region immediately 
around the lake, now from that hill-top with 
his glass he could descry upon the lake not a 
single sail, not a solitary boat.” And from the 
same point, commanding an extensive view of 
the great Jordan valley, he could discover “ not 
a city, not a village, not a house, not a sign of a 
settled habitation, except the few huts of Mag- 
dala and the shattered houses of Tiberias.” 4 

* lb. pp. 246, 247. t lb. p. 249. J lb. p. 110 



42 


THE JEWS; OR , 


To the same effect are the very recent and most 
accurate observations of Lieut. Conder, of the 
Palestine Exploration Society. The result of 
those observations is given in his Tent WorJc in 
Palestine, from which we quote the following: 

“As regards the seasons and the character 
and distribution of the water supply, natural or 
artificial, there is apparently no reason to sup¬ 
pose that any change has occurred since Bi¬ 
ble times. The climate has, however, to all 
appearance, materially changed for the worse. 

. . . . The main cause of the malarious nature 
of the climate seems to be the neglect of proper 
drainage.The change in productive¬ 

ness which has really occurred in Palestine is 
due to decay of cultivation, to decrease of popu- . 
lation, and to bad government. It is man and not 
nature, who has ruined the good land in which 
was no lack.”* Lieut. Conder bears witness, 
with all competent modern travelers, to the nu¬ 
merous evidences of the abundant population of 
former days, and the present desolation of once 
fruitful fields and vineyards. He says, 

“ Throughout Palestine the traces of former 
cultivation are well marked. The ancient 
vineyards are recognizable by the rock-cut 
wine-presses, and the old w T atch-towers are 

* Tent Work in Palestine , vol. ii., pp. 319, 320, 322, 
323. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


43 


found hidden in the encroaching copse. The 
great terraces, carved out of the soft marl hill¬ 
sides, or laboriously built up with stone retain- 
ing-waks, .... are still there, though they 
are often quite uncultivated and grow only 
thistles and thorns.”* Summing up the re¬ 
sults of his seven years’ work in the accurate 
scientific survey of the country, he says: 44 Such 
is the present condition of Palestine—a good 
country running to waste for want of proper 
cultivation. Truly, it may be said, 4 A fruitful 
land maketli he barren for the wickedness of 
them that dwell therein.’ ” f 

But besides all these general predictions con¬ 
cerning the Jewish people and their land, oth¬ 
ers were also given as to the history and fate 
of the Iloly City. More than 2,500 years ago 
Micah prophesied to the Jews that for their 
sake Zion should be 44 plowed as a held,” and 
Jerusalem 44 become heaps, and the mountain of 
the house as the high places of the forest.” £ 
How truly this has also been fulfilled, every one 
knows, and we need not enter into particulars. 
Twenty times within 2,000 years was Jerusa¬ 
lem subjected to siege, and again and again 
burned with hre. Hadrian, in a. d. 135, ac« 


* Tent Work in Palestine , vol. ii., p. 323. 
f lb., p. 326. X Mic. iii. 12. 










44 


THE JEWS; OR, 


cording to Jerome, ran the ploughshare over 
the hill of Zion.* Even in this day the prophecy 
is as literally fulfilled, for Dr. Porter, in the booh 
before cited, tells us that he saw the south slope 
of Zion covered with vineyards, olive-trees, and 
corn-fields, the husbandman driving the plough 
and oxen, ploughing Zion like a field.f 

The complete fulfilment of the predictions con¬ 
cerning Jerusalem, as indeed of those also con¬ 
cerning the people and the land, was not reached 
until after the nation had rejected their Messiah. 
But then, shortly, the worst that had been threat¬ 
ened came to pass. The Lord Jesus, foretelling 
the approaching future of the people, said of the 
temple, that u there should not be left one 
stone upon another, that should not be thrown 
down”; that the city should be taken, and “be 
trodden down of the Gentiles till the times of 
the Gentiles should be fulfilled.” ^ So, as every 
one knows, it has been and still is. In the year 
70, Jerusalem fell; the walls were levelled; 
a garrison was left behind the departing army to 
complete the work of desolation. Since that 
time, once and again has the attempt been made 
to rebuild the temple and restore the nation, 
but thus far it has always failed. In 135 it 


* Miltnan: History of the Jews, vol. ii., pp. 440, 441. 
t Giant Cities, p. 122. J Luke xxi. 6, 24. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


45 


was attempted by the Jews themselves, in the 
revolt under Bar Cocheba, bnt it only resulted 
in their being overthrown and crushed more 
completely than before. Later, under the aus¬ 
pices of the Emperor Julian the Apostate, in 
362, an attempt was again made to rebuild the 
temple, thus to falsify the prediction of the 
Lord. But fire burst from the ruins and so ter¬ 
rified the workmen, that the undertaking was 
abandoned. Again, in 1799, Napoleon, when 
on his Syrian expedition, issued a proclamation 
to the Asiatic Jew's to rally to his standard and 
rebuild the Lloly City. But the Syrian cam¬ 
paign was a failure, and the project fell 
through. And thus it has come to pass, de¬ 
spite determined attempts to have it otherwise, 
that, from the days of Titus until now, Jerusa¬ 
lem has been trodden dowm of the Gentiles, 
precisely as the Lord Jesus said that it would 
be, till the times of the Gentiles should be 
fulfilled. Pagan, Christian, and Mohamme¬ 
dan have all, at one time or another, held the 
city, but the Jews, never. Boman, Saracen, 
Crusader, have one after another trampled the 
Holy City underfoot, and there still rules the 
Turk to-day. 

Summing up all, it is no exaggeration to 
say that the ancient predictions of the Old and 
New Testaments with regard to the Jewish na- 





46 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tion, tlieir land, their city and their temple, have 
been fulfilled with a degree of minute literality 
which makes it quite correct to say that the 
history of the fortunes of this people was writ¬ 
ten two thousand years in advance. Such a 
phenomenon is to be met nowhere outside of 
this nation, and the Scriptures which origi¬ 
nated among them. We insist that a phenome¬ 
non like this, added to all else that is so unique 
and peculiar in their remarkable history, is one 
that rightly claims the most earnest and thought¬ 
ful consideration of all serious men. 

It is indeed true that other books, among 
other nations, also contain what profess to be 
predictions of the future, to which, however, no 
one feels called upon to pay any special atten¬ 
tion. But such cases, on a closer examination, 
prove to have nothing in common with these 
prophecies of the Jewish books, except the 
mere fact that they also claim, more or less 
distinctly, to be predictions of the future. In 
many instances, history contains nothing corre¬ 
sponding to the event predicted. In other 
cases, the predictions themselves are so vague 
and general that they are of no significance. 
Others, again, bear distinct marks of having 
been written either after the events which are 
supposed to be foretold, or so immediately be¬ 
fore their occurrence that they can be naturally 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


47 


explained as fortunate forecasts by shrewd 
minds, of events which might ere long be rea¬ 
sonably expected.* But the case of the pre¬ 
dictions before us is totally different. They 
are found scattered through a collection of 
writings produced among this one Jewish peo¬ 
ple and no other, and that in various countries 
and at various times, during a period of pro¬ 
fessedly about 1,500 years. In many instances 
they refer to nothing immediately impending, 
which it might have been possible to anticipate 
by the natural reason, but, on the contrary, 
deal with a series of events reaching so far into 
the future, that even we who live more than 
1,800 years from the time that the latest of these 
predictions was delivered, have not yet seen the 
end of their fulfilment. The possibility, there¬ 
fore, that they may be regarded as prophecies 
after the event, is in the nature of the case 
ruled out. 

Hor should we omit to observe, and empha- 


* See on this subject an excellent lecture on “ The Evi¬ 
dence from Prophecy,” by William Lindsay Alexander, 
D.D., F.R.S.E., in the Credentials of Christianity, Lon¬ 
don, Hodder & Stoughton, 1880; also the late Rev. 
Dr. Pusey’s Lectures on Daniel , 6th ed., p. 637, Note F : 
“ On the secular predictions which Dr. Stanley paral¬ 
lels in regard to exactness of fulfilment with those of 
the Old Testament.” 




48 


THE JEWS; OR, 


size here what has been remarked before, that 
the essential facts which hear upon this matter 
are not affected by any questions which modem 
criticism has raised as to the date of the sev¬ 
eral books which contain the predictions. Let 
every book in which any of these predictions 
are found, be brought down to the latest date 
which the most radical criticism would claim; 
still, however the question of the real predictive 
character of certain prophecies might be affect¬ 
ed thereby, it would yet remain true that we 
have here a large residuum of veritable pro¬ 
phecy, which was undeniably written long before 
the actual occurrence of the events foretold. 
And while it may be admitted that many other 
prophecies which refer to the Babylonian exile, 
were published shortly before that event, yet it 
is to be noted that even these contain many 
particulars which were not realized until centu¬ 
ries afterward. 

The phenomena are such as make the suppo¬ 
sition that we have here only a number of for¬ 
tunate guesses at coming events by men of far- 
seeing minds, to be in the last degree improb¬ 
able. Many of the events and circumstances 
foretold are as far as possible from being such 
as would in that day have naturally occurred to 
the mind of a patriotic Israelite, endeavoring 
to forecast the future of his nation and country. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


49 


On the contrary, many of these predictions are 
such that every instinct of natural pride and 
patriotism would have led their authors to draw 
a very different picture of the future. In fact, 
so offensive to the pride and contradictory to 
the lixecl religious beliefs of the nation, did 
these predictions, when first delivered, appear, 
that they were almost unanimously disbelieved 
by the great majority of the people. For giving 
forth such gloomy forecasts, the prophets w T ere 
often severely persecuted and sometimes put to 
death. To this the writings of Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel, especially, bear abundant testimony.* 
Not only this, but the predictions, in many 
cases, were really in themselves so highly im¬ 
probable, that no man desirous of a reputation 
as a prophet, would have risked it in giving 
forth such vaticinations of the future as these. 
In many instances they were truly as unlikely 
of fulfilment as could well be imagined. There, 
for example, was Babylon, in the fulness of her 
strength, the mistress of the ancient world, and 
there was Israel, vainly struggling against her 
mighty power. Yet the prophets said that Baby¬ 
lon would soon utterly and forever pass away; 
but that Israel, though she should go into a long 
captivity, and suffer miseries for “ many genera- 


♦See, e.g., Jer. vii. 4; Ez. xi. 2, 3; Mic. iii. 11. 

4 






50 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tions” eucli as had never fallen to the lot of 
any people, scattered among all nations, without 
a king, without a country, without a temple, 
without a priesthood, in a word, without any 
visible bond of union, should yet never perish, 
never mingle with the nations, and never lose 
its individual character as a nation, even forages 
after Babylon should have disappeared forever. 
Was that such a forecast as unaided human in¬ 
tellect would have been likely to think out as a 
probable anticipation for the future? Yet it 
came to pass, and stands undeniably fulfilled 
before our eyes to-day ! 

Hosea gives us another no less striking illus¬ 
tration. He foretold, we read, that Israel should 
abide “ many days without an image, and without 
teraphim,” and also without a priesthood, and 
without sacrifice. That he should anticipate 
that at last his people, as the happy result of 
the corrective judgment that was to come upon 
them, would be cured of their inveterate tend¬ 
ency to idol worship, were perhaps conceivable; 
but how utterly unlikely was it that he should, 
on any ground of natural reason, have ventured 
to predict that this long period marked by the 
absence of idolatry, should also be marked by 
the non-existence of the priesthood and the 
cessation of the Mosaic sacrifices, the only 
form of the worship of Jehovah with which he 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


51 


was familiar, the only form permitted to his 
nation! 

The conclusion from all this seems as clear 
and inevitable as it is also of incalculable 
moment. Here is a nation whose whole history 
from its earliest beginning has been absolutely 
unique in its character; a people who, arising 
out of a race and in an age notable in the an¬ 
cient world for the exceptional grossness of its 
idolatries, have yet been the undoubted original 
source of all the monotheistic religion that there 
is to-day on the face of the earth ; a people who, 
without any of those outward and visible bonds 
of a common government and a common home 
which are the ordinary conditions of national 
existence, placed and kept for hundreds of 
years under circumstances which should natural- 

t/ 

ly have resulted long ago in their utter extinc¬ 
tion, have yet all along, quite to the present time, 
exhibited a tenacity of national life and a sepa¬ 
rateness from the great mass of the nations 
among whom they have lived, shown by no 
other people in history. These so exceptional 
and unparalleled facts were of themselves so re¬ 
markable as to call for the most thoughtful 
investigation. They are such as to give abun¬ 
dant warrant for Prof. Christlieb’s emphatic 
words, when, referring to those who “ persist in 
doubting ” miracles of other kinds, he says: 



52 


THE JEWS; OR , 


“ We would point (them) to the people of Israel 
as a perennial, living historical miracle. The con¬ 
tinued existence of this nation up to the present day, 
the preservation of its national peculiarities throughout 
thousands of years, in spite of all dispersion and op¬ 
pression, remains so unparalleled a phenomenon, that 
without the special providential preparation of God, 
and His constant interference and protection, it would 
be impossible for us to explain it. For where else is 
there a people over which such judgments have passed, 
and yet not ended in destruction ? ” * 

But the strangest fact of all remains. For this 
same peculiar people have a literature, confess¬ 
edly very ancient, in which all this most unique 
experience is found actually predicted and writ¬ 
ten out, centuries before it could have seemed 
even possible. Is all this of no significance ? 
Do all these unparalleled phenomena in that 
people Israel, mean simply nothing ? Can they 
be reasonably explained on purely naturalistic 
grounds ? Have we nothing here but the won¬ 
derful Jewish “ intuition ” ? Is there not the 
strongest reason to suspect the presence in this 
history and in these prophecies, of an element 
which is not of man, but from above man ? 

And when we observe that, in point of fact, 
these prophets, one and all, expressly claim that 
this was indeed the case ; that under the pressure 

* Modem Doubt and Christian Belief ’ Lect. v., p. 
333. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 53 

of every motive to the contrary, even when 
facing imprisonment and death because of the 
words which they spake, they still never wavered 
in the persistent assertion that the words which 
they spoke, were not their own words, but God’s 
words, are we not now compelled, as reasonable 
men, in the light of 2,000 years of unbroken 
fulfilment of this prophetic history, to admit 
their claim, and-confess that, in a sense in which 
it is true of the words of no other man, the 
words of Jesus, of the apostles and prophets, 
are indeed the words of the living and omnis¬ 
cient God ; and that the books in which these 
are found, and of which they form an integral 
part, are, indeed, in a very true and literal 
sense, unlike all other books whatever, the very 
Word of God, and are therefore to be believed 
and obeyed accordingly ? How can any reason¬ 
able and unbiassed mind escape this conclusion 
from the facts before us ? 

But yet another conclusion follows inevi¬ 
tably from the same line of argument. If 
these books of the Holy Scriptures are by 
the undoubted occurrence of real predictions 
in them, proven to be the Word of God, 
then the conclusions of the modern radical 
school of criticism, as against the genuineness 
and authenticity of these books, cannot be 
justified, and there must be somewhere a flaw 


54 


THE JEWS; OR , 


in tlie argument by which they have been 
reached. For the prophetic element is woven 
into the very texture of these books ; it cannot 
be extracted without, as it were, destroying the 
whole. And if there be this prophetic element 
in any given book, then that book must, in the 
orthodox sense of the word, be a book super- 
naturally inspired by God. And yet we are 
asked to believe that certain books professing, 
for example, to have been written by Moses, 
were really in no sense written by him, but 
are the product of an age centuries later, and 
were therefore written, not by their professed 
author, but by some unknown person, who, 
in order to give his book greater authority, 
published it in Moses’ name, and somehow 
palmed it off as such upon his credulous fel¬ 
low-countrymen 1 In a word, if such critics as 
these are right, we have here a no less remark¬ 
able phenomenon than an inspired forgery ! 
Is such a thing a moral possibility ? 

Most will have heard the story which is told, 
if we mistake not, of Frederic the Great, that he 
once asked a Christian minister to give him an ar¬ 
gument, at once brief and conclusive, for the truth 
of the Christian religion. He was answered, 
“ The Jews, your majesty ! ” The world, with 
all its conceit of wisdom, has not yet out¬ 
grown that argument. And it will need, we 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


55 


are confident, resources far beyond those of the 
ablest of our modern unbelieving critics, to 
break or even weaken its force. We shall do 
well to hold fast to it. It has of late years been 
quite too much neglected. It is far enough yet 
from being out of date, as some have the pre¬ 
sumption to assure us. On the contrary, wo 
believe that before we are through with this 
subject, we shall be able to show that this old 
argument is, if possible, of greater force just in 
this our day than ever yet before. 









CHAPTER III. 


TO BE FULFILLED. 

“ Surely the Lord God will do nothing-, hut lie revealeth 
his secret unto his servants the prophets.”— Amos iii. 17. 

The prophet Isaiah told the Jews that they 
as a nation were God’s witnesses.* How true 
this is we have already seen. Wherever we 
see a Jew, we see a visible and irrefragable 
proof, both of the inspiration of the Scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments, and of the true 
Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. Beyond all 
doubt, in a manner most impressive, as it is also 
perfectly level to the comprehension of every 
one, does the Jew witness, in every land where 
he is found, for the God of the Bible, that He 
is indeed the true, the omniscient, and living 
God, who hath spoken unto us u in time past 
by the prophets,” and also “ in these last days 
by His Son,” Jesus Christ, the Lord. But even 
more than this is true. For if the Jew is in 
truth an unimpeachable and unanswerable wit¬ 
ness for God as regards His revelations in the 


* Is. xliii. 10. 

(56) 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


57 

past, it follows that he is no less so as to the re¬ 
vealed purposes of God concerning the future. 
For in that he is a visible proof of God’s faith¬ 
fulness to Ilis word thus far, he becomes a 
certain pledge and evidence that God may be 
expected to be no less faithful to His word in 
the future. 

We naturally ask, then,—Are there any pre¬ 
dictions of God’s Word concerning Israel 
which have not yet been fulfilled ? Assuredly, 
we cannot doubt it. Just as explicit as those 
fulfilled predictions of judgment which we 
have considered, are also other predictions of 
mercy and of glory for Israel such as that 
nation has never yet experienced. Was it said, 
“ Make the heart of this people fat, and make 
their ears heavy, and shut their eyes”?* Ho 
less plainly was it also said to this same peo¬ 
ple, “ A new heart will I give you, and a new 
spirit will I put within you, and I will take 
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I 
will give you an heart of flesh.” j* Was it 
said, “ I will scatter you among the heathen ” ? f 
It is no less plainly written, “ I will bring 
them out from the people, and gather them 
from the countries, and will bring them to 
their own land.” § Was it written, “I will 


* Is. vi. 10. 

I Lev. xxvi. 33. 


f Ezek. xxxvi. 26. 
§ Ezek. xxxiv. 13. 






58 


THE JEWS; OR , 


make your cities waste , .... and I will 
bring the land into desolation” ?* No less 
plainly was it also promised to this same peo¬ 
ple Israel, “ The cities shall be inhabited and 
the wastes shall be builded .” f In a word, for 
every threat of spiritual or temporal evil on the 
people, the land, or the Holy City, there is a 
corresponding promise of the removal of that 
evil. What is the natural conclusion from all 
these facts, but that just as all the threats have 
had a literal, historical fulfilment in the literal, 
historical nation of Israel, so also, if all this be 
indeed, as is abundantly proven by fulfilment 
hitherto, the word of the everlasting God, 
shall all these promises in like manner have a 
no less literal, historical fulfilment, in the same 
literal, historical nation of Israel. 

As regards the spiritual promises of the 
future conversion of the Jewish nation to the 
faith of their rejected Messiah, there will 
be found among evangelical Christians few, if 
any, to doubt that this shall indeed be the case. 
To refer these predictions to the spiritual quick¬ 
ening which was experienced on the occasion of 
the return from Babylon, is quite out of the 
question. That was but a partial reviving of a 
small part of the nation ; the largest part never 


* Lev. xxvi. 31, 32. 


t Ezek. xxxvi, 10 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


59 


returned at all, much less shared in the revival 
under Ezra and Neliemiah. But of the future 
spiritual blessing that is to come upon Israel, it 
is always specially mentioned that it shall be 
absolutely universal. Thus, whereas only Ju¬ 
dah shared in the former blessing, it is said that 
the new covenant shall be made both “ with the 
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.’’ * 
From that great spiritual blessing, not a single 
member of the house of Jacob shall be left out. 
It is written—not, as is often assumed, of the 
world in general, but of the Israelitish nation,— 
that “ they shall teach no more every man his 
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 
Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, 
from the least of them unto the greatest of 
them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their 
iniquity, and I will remember their sin no 
more.” f ' It is beyond doubt that there has 
never been thus far in the history of the Jew¬ 
ish nation any such experience as is described 
in these words. Their fulfilment, therefore, 
must be yet in the future. 

It is a further proof to the same effect, that 
the predicted conversion of the nation is every, 
where said to be a final conversion. They 
shall not “defile themselves any more with 


* Jer. xxxi, 31, 


t lb. vs. 84. 







60 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tlieir idols, nor with their detestable things, 
nor with any of their transgressions.” * “I 
will give them one heart, and one way, that 
they may fear me forever , for the good of 
them, and of their children after them; and I 
will make an everlasting covenant with them, 
that I will not turn away from them to do 
them good; but I will put my fear in their 
hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” f 
To refer such words as these to anything ex¬ 
perienced by the nation after the return from 
Babylon, or at any time since, is simply impos¬ 
sible. So far from that being a final blessing, the 
curse of hardening, pronounced on the nation 
in the days of Isaiah, remained on them accord¬ 
ing to the Lord’s explicit word,;); until the Mes¬ 
siah came. Instead of never departing from 
the Lord after the Babylonian restoration, some 
five hundred years later they committed the 
consummating sin of their whole history in the 
rejection of the Son of God as their Saviour 
and Messiah, and even to this day the veil upon 
their heart “remaineth untaken away in the 
reading of the Old Testament.” § We con¬ 
clude therefore again, as before, the conversion 
of the Jewish nation, predicted in such passages 
as these cited, is yet future. 


* Ezek. xxxvii. 23. 
I Matt. xiii. 13-15. 


t Jer. xxxii. 39, 40. 
§ 2 Cor. iii. 14, 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


61 

This is made yet plainer, if possible, by the 
fact that the crucifixion of the Messiah is ex¬ 
pressly referred to in one of these predictions, 
as the special sin which shall overwhelm Israel 
at last with penitential sorrow. For it is writ¬ 
ten, “ I will pour upon the house of David, and 
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit 
of grace and of supplications; and they shall 
look upon me whom they have pierced, and they 
shall mourn for him , as one mourneth for his 
only son, and shall be in bitterness for him , as 
one that is in bitterness for his first-born.” * 

Finally, for this interpretation of these Old 
Testament predictions, we have the express tes¬ 
timony of the apostle Paul in the Epistle to the 
Romans, wherein he tells us that “ God hath 
not cast away his people which he foreknew 
and that although “ blindness in part is hap¬ 
pened unto Israel,” it is not forever, but only 
Ci until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” 
“ and so all Israel shall be saved.” f 

The world, then, we may already safely con¬ 
clude, has not yet seen the last wonder in 
the history of this wonderful people. As 
they have for centuries been a wonder as 
a nation under the divine wrath, so also are 
they yet to be, and more conspicuously than 


* Zech. xii. 10. 


f Rom. xi. 2, 25. 







62 


THE JEWS; OR , 


ever, a wonder of divine grace. “ All Is ♦ 
rael ” is to be saved. In the passage above 
cited from Jeremiah, it is particularly said that 
there shall not remain one unconverted person, 
great or small, among them. Nor is this ap¬ 
parently to be the result of a slow and gradual 
process. A remnant is indeed being saved 
from among Israel even now. But the pro¬ 
phets constantly represent that mighty baptism 
of the Holy Ghost which is promised to Israel, 
as coming simultaneously upon the whole na¬ 
tion. This is clearly set forth in the context of 
the prophecy of Zechariah already cited. The 
world has never yet seen a whole nation, as such, 
truly converted unto God. But such a spectacle 
it is yet to see, and Israel, according to the pro¬ 
phets, is the nation chosen to give, first of all, in 
God’s time, to the w r orld, this most amazing 
and hitherto unparalleled exhibition of the di¬ 
vine grace, and of the might of God the Holy 
Ghost. 

It only remains to add that, according to 
the teaching of all the prophets, and the 
no less explicit teaching of the apostle Paul, 
this conversion of the Jewish nation will mark 
a turning point in the history of the world. In 
Is. lx., a passage in wdiich we have the author¬ 
ity of that apostle for understanding the people 
addressed to be the Jewish nation, the effect of 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 03 

this Jewish conversion upon the Gentile na¬ 
tions, is described in these glowing terms : 

“Arise! shine! for thy light is come, and the glory 
of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the dark¬ 
ness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peo¬ 
ple; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory 
shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come 
to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. 
Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart 
shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of 
the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the 
Gentiles shall come unto thee.” * 

All which and much more the apostle Paul 
sums up in the exulting question, “ If the fall 
of them be the riches of the world, and the di¬ 
minishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, 
how much more their fulness! . . . . For if 
the casting away of them be the reconciling of 
the world, what shall the receiving of them be 
but life from the dead ? ” f 

So much for the fulfilment of the promise of 
converting grace for Israel. As the threat of 
hardening was fulfilled, and is still visibly in 
full force, fulfilled before our eyes in the present 
spiritual condition of the Jewish nation, so also 
shall the promise receive a no less literal and il 
lustrious fulfilment. Hot for nothing is Israei 


* Is. lx. 1-3, 5. 


t Rom. xi. 12,15. 







64 


THE JEWS; OR , 


preserved through all these years, separate 
among the nations.' All Israel shall be saved, 
and all the world shall see it, and adore and wor¬ 
ship Israel’s God ! 

But this is not all that is predicted with 
regard to the future history of Israel. The 
very same prophets who predict a future re¬ 
versal of the spiritual curse of hardening which 
has for ages rested on the Jew, no less plainly 
and explicitly predict the reversal of all tempo¬ 
ral curses which were denounced, and have so 
literally fallen upon the nation, the land, and 
the Holy City. Yet, strange to say, many 
of our modern theologians, having come thus 
far with us in this argument, admitting fully 
that the Word of God does undoubtedly pre¬ 
dict a future national conversion of the Jews, 
insist that we must stop just here, and that the 
promises so abundantly made of restoration to 
the Holy Land, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, 
and other temporal blessings to be given to 
Israel in the latter days, are not to have any 
literal fulfilment in the Jewish nation what¬ 
ever ! Israel, say some, is to be understood in 
such passages as denoting the church of the Hew 
Testament. That is, although, whenever we 
find a threat of a curse to come upon Israel, in 
their being cast out from their own land to be 
miserable exiles among all nations, that curse 


PREDICTION ADD FULFILMENT. 


65 

is without doubt to be understood and applied 
in the most literal sense to the Jewish nation ; 
yet, whenever we find a Messing promised in 
the form of the removal of these same tempo¬ 
ral penalties from Israel in “ the latter days,” 
that blessing is not to be understood as having 
any reference to that suffering nation, but is to 
be applied to the church of the Hew Testa¬ 
ment—in other words, to us Gentiles ! 

Others feel that this interpretation puts rather 
too much of a strain upon the acknowledged 
principles of exegesis, and so admit that these 
predictions are, indeed, to be understood of the 
Jewish nation, blit that they are to be interpret¬ 
ed, not as signifying any actual return of the 
people to the land, and exaltation there to a po¬ 
sition of glory and blessing, but merely as figu¬ 
rative amplifications of the many promises of 
spiritual blessings to be bestowed upon the Jew¬ 
ish nation in the time of their conversion to 
Christ! And so the discussion goes on, and to 
the present time, after all that has been writ¬ 
ten, w T ise and good Christian men are still heard 
earnestly debating whether the Scriptures do 
really mean what it is granted on all hands they 
do really seem to say, that Israel shall not only 
be converted, but shall be reconstituted a na¬ 
tion in their own land in holiness and glory. 

As far as mere words go, it would seem that 
5 





66 


THE JEWS; OR , 


nothing could be plainer. Thus, for example, 
we read in Jer. xxx. 3 : 

“ Lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring 
again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, and 
I will cause them to return to the land that I gave unto 
their fathers, and they shall possess it.” 

So we read again in Ezek. xxxvii. 21: 

“ Say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, ‘Behold 
I will take the children of Israel from among the hea¬ 
then, whither they be gone, and will gather them on 
every side and bring them into their own land 1 ’ ” 

Sncb examples, as every Bible reader knows, 
might be multiplied indefinitely. 

In this debate about their meaning, it is to be 
noted first of all, that it is utterly impossible to 
apply all such predictions of return to the land, 
as some have sought to do, to the return under 
Ezra from the Babylonian exile. Whatever 
they mean, it is absolutely certain that they re¬ 
fer to an event which is yet in the future. This 
will be perfectly clear from the following con¬ 
siderations : 

1. The Scriptures undoubtedly predict a re¬ 
turn which is to take place “ in the latter days” 
To “the latter days” is expressly referred, e.g ., 
the prophecy of Jeremiah, in chap, xxx.* What 

* See verse 24. Hence the prophet was specially com¬ 
manded (vs. 2) to put that prophecy on lasting record 
“in a book.” 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT, 


67 

this expression means, every Bible student 
knows. It is never used with reference to any 
period before the first advent of our Lord. 
Least of all is it ever used in any of those 
prophecies which by common consent refer to 
the restoration from Babylon. The return of 
“ the latter days,” therefore, whatever it be, 
cannot be understood of the restoration from 
Babylon, nor of any event before the first com¬ 
ing of our Lord. Hence, as nothing since the 
first advent has occurred which could be so un¬ 
derstood, it is plain that the promised return is 
an event yet in the future. 

2. Another proof that the Babylonian resto¬ 
ration cannot be intended in all these predic¬ 
tions of a regathering of Israel in the land, is 
found in the fact that in many places the resto¬ 
ration of the ten tribes , under the names of 
Ephraim, Israel, etc., as well as that of the two 
tribes of Judah and Benjamin, is distinctly pre¬ 
dicted. Thus, for example, in the prophecy 
of restoration in Jer. xxx., xxxi., the restora¬ 
tion of the house of Israel or Ephraim, as dis¬ 
tinguished from that of Judah, is as specifically 
the subject of chap, xxxi., as is the restoration 
of Judah the subject of the chapter preceding. 
Yery explicit is the language of the prophet 
Ezekiel in this matter: 

“Say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I 








68 


THE JEWS; OX, 


will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of 
Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will 
put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and 
they shall be one in mine hand. . . . And I will make 
them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Is¬ 
rael, and one king shall be king to them all, and they 
shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be di¬ 
vided into two nations any more at all.” * 

It is very plain again, that, whatever these 
words mean, they were not fulfilled in the res¬ 
toration from Babylon, nor have been at any 
time since. They must refer to an event yet in 
the future. 

3. In the third place, whereas the restoration 
from Babylon and the rebuilding at that time of 
the city of Jerusalem, was followed again and 
again by dispersion and by a yet more complete 
overthrow of the city, this restoration of the latter 
days is uniformly represented as being absolutely 
final. Thus we read of a rebuilding of Jerusa¬ 
lem, after which “ it shall not be plucked up, 
nor thrown down , any more forever .” f So 
also, by Amos, the Lord says, u I will plant 
them upon their land, and they shall no more 
be pulled up out of their land which I have 
given them.” % 

These words assuredly cannot be referred to 


* Ezek. xxxvii. 19, 22. 
{ Am. ix. 15. 


f Jer. xxxi. 40. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


69 


the restoration from Babylon, after which they 
were again pulled np out of their land and scat¬ 
tered more widely and fearfully by the armies 
of the Romans than they ever were by the 
power of Nebuchadnezzar. 

4. Again, we read of a restoration which shall 
not only be final, but complete. Thus, the Lord 
said by the prophet Ezekiel, “ O mountains of 
Israel! .... I will multiply men upon you, all 
the house of Israel, even all of it.” * So also by 
Isaiah the Lord promised, “ Ye shall be gather¬ 
ed one by one , O ye children of Israel. ” f Sure¬ 
ly no one will insist that the restoration from 
Babylon satisfies such language as this. So far 
from all returning at that time, we are told that 
only 42,360 of the captives ever returned.;f 
Anything approaching to a universal restora¬ 
tion of Israel to their own land, the world has 
never yet seen. So, again, it is plain that what¬ 
ever these predictions mean, they cannot refer 
to the return from Babylon, but to an event 
which is yet in the future. 

5. This is, if possible, made still more clear 
by what we are told of the condition of Israel 
thus restored. As regards their national life, 
they are to be in a state of independence. 


* Ezek. xxxvi. 8, 10. 
J Ez. ii. 1, 64. 


f Is. xxvii. 12. 









7Q THE JEWS; OR , 

“ Strangers shall no more serve themselves of 
Jacob.” * But since the Babylonian restora- 
tion, the Jews have had to wear the yoke of the 
Gentiles almost without interruption. The 
brief quasi independence of the Jews, under 
the Asmonean kings, was soon followed by the 
beginning of a more complete subjection than 
ever, from which they have never yet recover¬ 
ed. And then, in the second place, it is always 
added that after that future restoration to the 
land, the long history of Israel’s apostasies shall 
end. Thus we read in the prophecy of Eze¬ 
kiel, that after the final reunion of Ephraim 
and Judah on the mountains of Judah, they 
shall- not “ defile themselves any more w T ith any 
of their transgressions. ” Erom that time on, 
the sanctuary of God “shall be in the midst of 
them forevermore .” It is needless to say that 
such words as these cannot be applied to a res¬ 
toration, which, if it cleansed them from idola¬ 
try, only brought them for a while into their 
own land, there to commit after a time the 
greatest crime of their whole history, in the 
crucifixion of the Son of God. 

6. Finally, the prophets themselves recognize 
the fact that there shall be two restorations. 
In the book of Isaiah this is said in so many 
words, thus: 



* Jer. xxx. 8. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


71 


“It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord 
shall set his hand again the second time to recover the 
remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, 
and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and 
from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and 
from the islands of the sea. . . . And he . . . shall 
assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the 
dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the 
earth.” * 

But the Babylonian restoration was the first, 
and not the second; and as there has certainly 
been no restoration since, it follows, accord¬ 
ing to the explicit teaching of the prophet, a 
second restoration of Israel is yet in the future. 

Here then we have no less than six independ¬ 
ent proofs that the Scriptures do predict a re¬ 
gathering of the Jews into their own land, such 
as the world has never yet seen. Do the words of 
Scripture which foretell that this shall be, 
mean what they undoubtedly say, or are they, 
one and all, to be understood as merely figura¬ 
tive descriptions of the prosperity of the church 
in the latter days, or, at most, as poetic ampli¬ 
fications of the prophecies of Israel’s con¬ 
version ? 

Strange, indeed, that such a question should 
ever have been raised ! If such words as those 
which we have cited, do not teach that Israel, 


* Is. xi. 11, 12. 





72 


THE JEWS; OR, 


the literal, historical, national Israel, shall yet be 
gathered into their own land, to be rooted out 
no more forever, we ask with all earnestness, 
what words could possibly have been substi¬ 
tuted which should have taught this? The 
very same terms are used in Jer. xxix. 10, 
in predicting the return of the Jews from 
the Babylonian captivity, which are elsewhere 
employed to predict the return of the latter 
days. As every one knows, the event proved 
that these words were to be taken in their 
plain and evident literal sense; they meant 
precisely what they said, nothing more and 
nothing less. How, then, on any sound prin¬ 
ciples of exegesis, can any one be justified in 
denying that the selfsame words in the same 
prophets, foretelling a u second ” restoration, 
also mean exactly what they meant in the for¬ 
mer case, namely, a literal return of the Jewish 
nation to their own land ? We insist, on prin¬ 
ciples of interpretation which seem to us little 
less than axiomatic, that the presumption in 
this case, for the literal interpretation of these 
temporal promises to Israel, is well-nigh irresist¬ 
ible. The mere fact that we cannot at present 
see how these things can be literally fulfilled, 
cannot suffice, as so many seem to imagine, to 
nullify the force of this presumption. Before, 
in the face of it, we can rightly set aside the 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


73 

literal interpretation, we are bound to see that we 
have teaching to the contrary which is clear and 
incontrovertible. So far, however, from hav¬ 
ing any such explicit teaching of Scripture to 
put against this presumption, it is abundantly 
confirmed by the Word and the providence of 
God. 

In the first place, as having a decisive bearing 
on this question, we are to note the fact that the 
original covenant of God with Abraham touch¬ 
ing the land of promise, has never been fulfilled. 
It must, therefore, be fulfilled in a future pos¬ 
session of the land by the Jews, or it will never 
be fulfilled at all. It is of great importance to 
observe, what has been very often overlooked, 
that the covenant concerning the land, as made 
with Abraham, was not identical with the cove¬ 
nant as given later to Israel under Moses. The 
latter was secondary and subordinate to the for¬ 
mer. It simply marked a stage in the progress 
toward the fulfilment of the Abrahamic prom¬ 
ise. Between the two covenants regarding the 
land, there were two points of essential distinc¬ 
tion and contrast. 

In the first place, the two covenants dif¬ 
fered as to the extent of the land which was 
promised. The covenant, as made with Abra¬ 
ham concerning the land, promised a terri¬ 
tory vastly larger than Israel has ever oecu- 


74 


THE JEWS; OR , 


pied. So far from being limited to the land of 
Palestine as actually inhabited by the twelve 
tribes, it is said to extend “from the river of 
Egypt,” the Nile, “unto the great river, the 
river Euphrates”;* while, elsewhere, its limits 
on the north and south are represented as being, 
northward, the “ entering in of Hamath ” (the 
mouth of the river Orontes), and southward, 
the Red Sea.f That Israel did not possess this 
territory under Joshua is plain from the fact 
that we are told in so many words that when 
Joshua was old and stricken in years, there re¬ 
mained, even of the land given through Moses, 
“ yet very much ” to be possessed.;): That the 
land promised to Abraham, was not given to 
Israel in the Mosaic covenant, is clear from the 
prophecy of Balaam. While that prophet ex¬ 
pounds the original covenant as including Moab 
and Ammon and Edom,§ the Lord, under the 
Mosaic covenant, forbade Israel to take their 
land. | In the days of Solomon there was, as 


* Gen. xv. 18. 

t Num. xxxiv. 3-5, 7-9. See, for an exposition of 
these boundaries, The Land of Israel , chap, ii., by 
Alexander Keith, D.D. New York: Harper Brothers, 
1855. The north and south borders would seem to have 
been the same under both covenants. 

$ Josh. xiii. 1. § Num. xxiv. 17, 18. 

j Deut. ii. 4, 5, 9, 19. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


75 

it were, a typical fulfilment of the Abrahamic 
covenant, in that all the land therein specified, 
although not actually inhabited by Israel, was 
then laid under tribute.* 

But, even then, the various petty kings outside 
of Palestine, retained a independence, and, 
so far from being an “ everlasting possession,” 
they only paid tribute for less than forty 
years.f Thus we find that God promised to 
Abraham and his seed a land which, as a mat¬ 
ter of fact, Israel has never yet occupied. So 
far, therefore, from the covenant with Abra¬ 
ham concerning the land, having been fulfilled 
in the few hundred years’ occupation of Pales¬ 
tine by the Jewish nation, we find that when 
God gave to them the land of Canaan, He did 
not allow them at that time to occupy large 
parts of the land originally promised. 

Hor can any one say that Israel failed to ob¬ 
tain all the land because of their unbelief and 
disobedience, and that their unbelief has now 
made the promise void. For it is a second 
point of contrast between the Mosaic and the 
Abrahamic covenants, that, while the covenant 
concerning the land, as given under Moses, was 
conditioned on the obedience of Israel, the 
promise of the land as made to Abraham had 


* 2 Chron. ix. 26. 


t See 1 Kings xi. 14-25. 



76 


THE JEWS; OR , 


no condition in it. It was given to Abraham 
by promise, and not by the law. Obedience 
had nothing* to do with its fulfilment. The 
prohibition, under the Mosaic covenant, against 
occupying the lands of Edom, Moab, and Am¬ 
mon was based on quite a different ground, 
which had nothing at all to do with Israel’s be¬ 
havior. Notwithstanding Israel’s long, dark 
record of sin and unbelief, God’s original cove¬ 
nant to give that land territorially defined in 
Gen. xv. 18-21 to Abraham’s seed for an ever¬ 
lasting possession, still stands there in God’s 
word, unconditioned and absolute. And, there¬ 
fore, seeing that, as Paul reminds us with re¬ 
gard to this very matter of Israel’s future, 
“ the gifts and calling of God are without re¬ 
pentance,” or “ change of mind,” it follows in¬ 
evitably that if that unconditioned promise has 
never yet been fulfilled, then it must be ful¬ 
filled in the future. It cannot have lapsed on 
account of Israel’s sin. As surely, therefore, 
as God is true, Israel must yet have all that 
land which was given in covenant to Abraham 
for their possession. 

The bearing of all this is evident. Plainly, 
this unfulfilled promise of God gives us of 
itself the strongest reason for assuming that 
when we read again in the prophets of a time 
that is coming when a new covenant—differing 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


T7 

from that of Moses, in that it shall have no legal 
condition in it, but shall be all of grace, and 
not of works—shall be made with all the house 
of Israel and the house of Judah, and that un¬ 
der that new covenant the Lord will plant 
Israel in the land which He gave unto their 
fathers, to be u rooted up no more forever,” the 
words mean exactly what they say. 

But a second argument of overwhelming force, 
for the literal interpretation of these promises 
of the reinstatement of Israel in the Holy Land, 
is found in the analogy of the prophecies al¬ 
ready fulfilled. This, indeed, has been already 
suggested, but the argument deserves a fuller 
development. How can we possibly determine 
how God may be expected to fulfil predictions 
in the future, except by observing how in point 
of fact He has fulfilled them in the past? If 
this be not a safe principle, where can we 
find one? How, then, has God thus far 
fulfilled His prophetic word ? In seeking the 
answer to this question we may conveniently 
classify the prophecies, as regards their subject 
matter, as Messianic, Gentile, and Jewish. In 
each of these three classes we affirm that his¬ 
tory bears witness that God has thus far ful¬ 
filled the predictions of His Word in a very 
literal manner. 

This is true, in the first place, of the Messi- 



THE JEWS; OR, 


78 

anic prophecies. Every student of the Bible 
knows with what wonderful literality the mi¬ 
nute details of the predictions touching the 
humiliation of the Messiah, have been ful¬ 
filled in the event. So exact is this literality, 
that it is safe to say that all a priori theories 
of interpretation would have unhesitatingly re¬ 
jected such a minutely literal interpretation as 
was justified by the facts, when they occurred. 
And so, in fact, did the Jewish interpreters of 
prophecy, in the days of our Lord’s life on 
earth, agree in rejecting the literal interpreta¬ 
tion of those prophecies which foretold the low 
condition of the Messiah in His first appearing. 
Selecting as to be literally interpreted those 
which suited best their earthly notions as to 
the fitness of things, and explaining away the 
rest, they failed to recognize the promised Mes¬ 
siah in the lowly Hazarene, and, because they 
knew not the Scriptures, fulfilled them in re¬ 
jecting Him. 

As regards the predictions of the Word of 
God concerning various Gentile powers, it needs 
but little acquaintance with history, to be im¬ 
pressed with the marvellous literality with 
which in due time they have all been brought to 
pass. So indisputable is the fact of the exact and 
minute agreement between the predictions and 
the corresponding history, that it has always 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT\ 


79 

seemed to the believer in the Bible one of the 
most unanswerable arguments for its divine 
origin; while on the other hand, with unbe¬ 
lievers, from Porphyry down to his modern dis¬ 
ciples, it has often furnished occasion for the 
persistent assertion that a correspondence so 
exact could not be philosophically accounted 
for, except upon the supposition that the so- 
called prophecies were written either after or 
immediately before the events to which they 
refer.* Of this general fact regarding the pre¬ 
dictions which relate to Gentile nations, ex- 

t 

amples might be multiplied indefinitely, but 

* Professor Kuenen, however, takes the opposite 
position, and in his Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, 
boldly charges that many of * the so called predic¬ 
tions concerning these Gentile powers, have never 
been fulfilled at all, even in some cases where few have 
ever ventured to dispute it. We cannot do better 
here than refer the reader to the recent work of Pi of. 
Green, of Princeton, entitled Moses and the Prophets, 
pp. 181-218, where he has carefully examined in de¬ 
tail many alleged non-fulfilments of the prophecies 
concerning various heathen nations, and shown con¬ 
clusively how little basis there is for Prof. Kuenen’s 
cavils. We only regret that he should have felt him¬ 
self constrained to concede to Prof. Kuenen, that a ful¬ 
filment of the temporal promises to Israel, in that 
nation, has now become impossible. We hope to show 
good reason, further on, for believing that concession to 
be as yet quite premature. 




80 


THE JEWS; OR , 


merely to mention tlie numerous prophecies 
concerning Tyre, Edom, Nineveh, Babylon, 
etc., will quite serve our present purpose. 

As regards, then, these Messianic and Gen¬ 
tile prophecies, the event has proven that it was 
intended that they should be understood in their 
literal and most obvious sense. Only the Jew¬ 
ish prophecies remain to be considered. How 
stands the case concerning them ? Here the 
fact stands out, if possible, still more conspic¬ 
uous and indisputable, that these also have 
thus far been fulfilled after the same law. 
The event has proven that these also, so 
far as they have been yet fulfilled, have 
been fulfilled, not in a figurative, but in a 
literal manner. This has been so abundantly 
illustrated in a former chapter, that we need not 
long dwell upon the facts in tins place. 

For the purpose of the present argument, 
all the prophecies concerning Israel may be 
conveniently summed up under two heads. 
First, we have predictions of curses to fall 
upon Israel, and in the second place, we have 
predictions of blessing. And under each of 
these two heads are included two similar par¬ 
ticulars. Under the first class we find predic¬ 
tions of spiritual evil, taking effect in hard¬ 
ness of heart; and in the second place, predic¬ 
tions of temporal evils, to be realized in the dis- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


81 

persion and afflictions of tlie people, tlie deso¬ 
lation of their land and all that was in it. Pre¬ 
cisely corresponding to this, we find that all the 
predictions of blessing fall also into two classes, 
namely, predictions of spiritual blessings, to 
take effect in the renewal and sanctification of 
the nation; and in the second place, predic¬ 
tions of temporal blessings, to consist in the re¬ 
instatement of the nation in the land, and the 
restoration of the land and its cities to its for¬ 
mer prosperity* 

Passages illustrating the prophecies under the 
first general class have already been given in 
abundance in a former chapter, and need not 
again here be quoted at length. It was made 
abundantly clear that, in the first place, as re¬ 
gards the curse pronounced against the spirit¬ 
ual life of Israel, the ancient prediction has 
been fulfilled to the letter. That fulfilment 
is a present, visible fact. But the threat of 
spiritual hardening was not all. The same 
prophecies also contained threats of temporal 
evils to follow this spiritual abandonment. 
Thus the Lord declared, for example, by the 
prophet Jeremiah, in language of startling clear¬ 
ness : 

“ I will persecute them with the sword, with the 
famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them 
to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be 
6 




82 


THE JEWS; OR , 


a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a re 
proach among all the nations whither I have driven 
them.” * 

As for tlie land while thus emptied of 
its rightful inhabitants, it was written that 
it should 6i become briers and thorns, and be 
utterly desolate.” It has been already shown 
that all these predictions concerning the exter¬ 
nal condition of this hardened and blinded 
nation and of their land, have been fulfilled 
with the same exact literality as those which 
foretold their spiritual ruin. They have proved 
to be, not mere figurative illustrations and poetic 
amplifications of the spiritual desolation which 
was to come upon the nation, but veritable pre¬ 
dictions of a literal scattering of the nation 
among all the nations of the world, and of a 
literal depopulation and desolation of their 
land. They found their complete fulfilment, 
not in any spiritual Israel, nor in the church as 
typified by Israel, but in the literal seed of 
Abraham according to the flesh, even the 
people whom we know as Jews. The proof of 
this is before our eyes. All this is so clear that 
there never has been any doubt about the literal 
fulfilment ~ of all the prophecies of cursing 
against Israel; nor can there be any, because 


* Jer. xxix. 18. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


83 


to deny this would be to deny the very testi¬ 
mony of the senses. 

But over against these prophecies of Israel’s 
rejection, as we have seen, stand no less distinct 
predictions of a restoration of Israel to take place 
in the latter days. And when we examine these 
predictions, we find, as remarked above, that 
they correspond in the most exact manner to 
the other prophecies of cursing. As there were 
predictions of a spiritual curse, fulfilled in Is¬ 
rael’s blindness and hardness of heart, so there 
is a corresponding prediction of the removal of 
that curse, of a time when Israel “ shall turn to 
the Lord,” and “ the veil shall be taken away.” * 
Again, as there are prophecies of temporal pen¬ 
alties to come on the people and the land, en¬ 
tirely distinct from those concerning their 
spiritual abandonment, so we find prophecies 
of the removal of those temporal penalties for¬ 
ever, in God’s appointed time. Was Israel to 
be “ scattered ” among all nations ? It was also 
written, “ He that scattered Israel will gather 
him.”f Were they to be cast out of their 
land ? It stands no less plainly written, “ I will 
bring them again into their land that I gave 
unto their fathers. ” % Was that land to be 
“bereaved of men” and “desolate”? It is 


* 2 Cor. iii. 16. 


f Jer. xxxi. 10. J Jer. xvi. 15. 





84 


THE JEWS ; OR , 


written with the same luminous plainness, “ Te 
mountains of Israel, hear the word of the 
Lord !... Thus saith the Lord God: Because they 
have made you desolate, and swallowed you up 
on every side, that ye might be a possession 
unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are 
taken up in the lips of the talkers;... therefore 
thus saith the Lord God : Behold, I am for you, 
. ... and ye shall be tilled and sown, and I 
will multiply men upon you , all the house of 
Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be in¬ 
habited, and the wastes shall be builded; . . . . 
and 1 will settle you after your old estates, and 
do better unto you than at your beginnings.” * 
Many more such predictions might be cited, 
but these will abundantly suffice. 

Such then are the facts, and what are we to 
make of them ? Surely one would think that 
there could be only one answer : namely, that as 
the Gentile and the Messianic prophecies were 
fulfilled literally, and as the predictions of 
the spiritual curse were fulfilled literally in 
Israel, and as the predictions of the temporal 
curses were fulfilled no less literally on 
the people and the land, and as, on the 
authority of Paul, all evangelical Christians 
are agreed that the predictions of the future 


* Ezek. xxxvi. 3, 9-11, Compare Ezek. yi. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. g5 

conversion of this nation, do refer to this same 
historical Israel, and will be fulfilled no less lit¬ 
erally than all the foregoing, so also of course 
shall the only class of prophecies remaining, be 
also fulfilled in the same literal, national Is¬ 
rael, and in the same literal, historical manner. 
That is, Israel, that very nation whose often 
despised representatives we see in the streets 
of all our cities, shall yet be gathered back into 
their own land ; “ desolate” though it has been 
for ages “ in the sight of all that pass by,” that 
land shall yet be filled with the chosen people, 
and Jerusalem, the Holy City, “ shall be builded 
again on her own heap.” * 

If this is not the clear meaning of the Word 
of God, we confess that we do not see how 
one is to find out what that Word does mean. 
If we err in applying to these prophecies the 
same principles which, without controversy, 
God has vindicated by His providence in the ful¬ 
filment of all other prophecies—principles re¬ 
affirmed by His Holy Spirit in the New Testa¬ 
ment, in that He teaches us to expect the literal 
conversion of all Israel in time to come; if 
so to interpret these predictions be wrong, 
then, despite all that has been learnedly written 
to the contrary, surely we are at sea without a 


* Jer. xxx. 18. 






86 


THE JEWS; OR , 


compass, and know not what principles ono 
may safely follow in the interpretation of the 
prophetic word. 

And yet just here is it that we meet what to 
many seems one of the most inexplicable phe¬ 
nomena in the history of Biblical interpretation. 
Good and evangelical men, professing to hold 
fast to that Word as truly God’s Word, and 
appealing, as well they may, to the marvellously 
literal fulfilment of the prophecies about the 
Jews in all time past, as an unanswerable argu¬ 
ment for the Bible; pointing the infidel, as well 
they may, to that land, “ taken up in the lips of 
the talkers,” “ forsaken and desolate,” mutely 
testifying to Jehovah’s everlasting truth; look¬ 
ing forward with no less confidence to a future 
no less literal fulfilment of the promise that all 
this same Israelitish nation shall be saved from 
that spiritual doom which has for ages rested 
on them; yet just here stop, and refuse to go 
a step further, and tell us that Israel shall not 
be gathered into their own land ; that the tem¬ 
poral promises to them will not be fulfilled 
in Israel; though everything else has been or 
will be literally fulfilled in that nation, this alone 
shall not be! The Jews were literally cast out 
of the land, but they shall only be figuratively 
gathered in again! These words meant just 
what they said, when they were used of the 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


87 

Babylonian captivity, but the selfsame words 
and phrases do not mean what they say, when 
they tell of a return from the present exile! 
a The land shall be made desolate,”—that was 
literal ; “ the desolate land shall be tilled,”—that 
is figurative of the spiritual prosperity of the 
expected millennium ! “ Zion shall for your 

sakes be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall 
become heaps,” *—that means the literal Mount 
Zion, on which at present stands the Mosque of 
Omar, and the literal city known as Jerusalem ; 
witness the conquests of Titus and of Hadrian, 
and let the infidel be silent. But when the 
prophet goes in the context on to say, u Thou, 
O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the 
daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even 
the first dominion ; the kingdom shall come to 
the daughter of Jerusalem ” here, Zion, we 
are often told, has no reference to the literal 
mountain which still bears that name ; nor does 
Jerusalem mean Jerusalem ; but Zion, and Je¬ 
rusalem, and the daughter of Zion and Jerusa¬ 
lem, all alike mean the Hew Testament church; 
and the prophecy which in words declares the 
restoration of the lost dominion to the Jewish 
nation, on which the curse had been pronounced, 
really means simply that the Christian religion 
is yet to dominate the world! 


* Mic. iii. 12. 


t Mic. iv. 8. 





88 


THE JEWS; OR, 


We fully recognize the fact that brethren 
who understand the Word of God in this way, 
are good, able and learned men, but none the 
less must we express the conviction that this 
style of interpretation logically does away with 
the Word of God as bearing a distinct and un¬ 
ambiguous testimony to anything. The apostle 
says that the “ sure word of prophecy ” is “ a 
lamp which shineth in a dark place, to which 
we do well that we take heed.” * But if when 
we read, for example, a He that scattered Israel 
will gather him,” the first half of the sentence 
means Israel, and the second half does not mean 
Israel; or, while the first half of the sentence 
means that God scattered the literal Israel out 
of their own land, yet the last half does not 
mean that God will gather them again into that 
land whence He cast them out, then we can only 
say, that we are quite at a loss to see how Peter 
could have said that the word of prophecy was 
“ a lamp shining in a dark place ” ! 

But it is rejoined with great confidence that 
in the Hew Testament, the Apostle Paul plainly 
teaches us to understand the Israel of these 
promises, as not the Israelitish nation, but the 
whole body of believers. Thus it is written, 
“ If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, 


* 2 Peter i. 19. 






PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


89 




and heirs according to the promise.” * The 
argument is plausible, and has had great weight 
with many—the more, that it has been endorsed 
by not a few honored names. None the less, 
however, we are persuaded, it can only stand if 
we assume that by an inspired declaration of a 
typical or spiritual meaning in a word, people, 
or history, the literal, historical sense of the 
same is thereby excluded. But such an as¬ 
sumption is demonstrably untrue. Hence while 
it is beyond dispute that Paul does teach us to 
recognize another than the fleshly Israel, in the 
Old Testament promises, yet the conclusion 
which some draw from this, that we should 
therefore understand all the promises of a still 
future restoration, made to Israel in the Old 
Testament, as having reference only to the 
spiritual Israel, by no means follows. That 
there is a <£ Jerusalem which is above, which 
is the mother of us all,” f does not do away 
with the fact that there is also a Jerusalem 
which is on earth, the figure of the heavenly. 
In fact, we have here a single application of 
a principle which is continually meeting us in 
the New Testament use of Old Testament 
Scriptures. The New Testament clearly teaches 
us to recognize in the Old Testament history— 


* Gal. iii. 29. 


f Gal. iv. 26. 








90 


THE JEWS; OR , 


in many places, at least—a primary, or historical 
sense, and another, typical, or spiritual sense. 
The smitten Hock, whose waters refreshed Is¬ 
rael in the wilderness, we are told, was Christ.* 
So again, we read in Ilosea, u When Israel 
was a child, then I loved him, and called my 
son out of Egypt.” f There is no doubt that 
in the primary and historical sense, this passage 
refers to the historical exodus of the fleshly Is¬ 
rael from the land of Egypt. But we are no 
less plainly taught by Matthew the apostle, to 
see in these words another and typical refer¬ 
ence to the bringing up of the Messiah in His 
childhood out of Egypt, whither He had been 
taken for the fear of Herod4 
Such instances of the double sense in the 
histories of the Old Testament might be multi¬ 
plied ; but it will suffice to observe that in all 
such cases the principle will be found to hold 
good, that the fact of the typical meaning or 
application of a narrative, by no means nec¬ 
essarily does away with the primary and his¬ 
torical sense, but rather presupposes it. So it is 
also with prophecy. Prophecy is simply his¬ 
tory written in advance. Like the sacred his¬ 
tory, it also may have—and according to the Hew 
Testament often does have—a double sense, the 


* 1 Cor. x. 4. 


t Hos. xi. 1. 


t Matt. ii. 15. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


91 


one, primary and historical, the other and higher, 
typical and spiritual. But the fact of a typi¬ 
cal sense no more does away with or nullities 
the historical meaning of the prophecy of the 
future, than it nullifies the primary, historical 
sense of the narrative of the past. Hence it is 
plain that the teaching of Paul that the Hew 
Testament church is the “ Israel of God,” * 
does not prove what it is adduced to prove. 
It proves what no one will deny, that there 
is an Israel according to the spirit, as well as 
an Israel according to the flesh, and that the 
promises of the Old Testament may, and some¬ 
times do, therefore, have an application to the 
spiritual Israel. It warrants us in inferring 
that the temporal blessings promised to Israel 
in the Old Testament are fitting adumbrations 
of yet greater blessings therein typically set 
forth as to come for the spiritual seed, the Jeru¬ 
salem which is above. But this does not prove 
that the primary and historic reference to 
the national Israel is therefore of necessity to 
be excluded in our interpretation of these 
prophecies. 

That Paul himself did not so understand the 
matter, should be plain enough from the way in 
which he argues from the Old Testament pro- 


* Gal* vi. 16. 



92 


THE JEWS; OR , 


phecy of Isaiah, as to the future history of the 
national Israel, in the Epistle to the Romans, 
' ix.-xi. In that classic passage, Paul gives us 
as clear and explicit inspired authority for un¬ 
derstanding the u Israel” or “Jacob,” of whom 
so much is predicted in Is. xl.-lxvi. of the Jew- 
ish nation, as in Gal. iii., iv., he gives us for a 
higher application of the ancient covenant to 
the spiritual Israel, the church of God. On both 
sides of this controversy, men need to take care, 
lest in their righteous zeal to maintain one in- 
spired truth, they do not ignore or deny an¬ 
other. 

It may further be remarked, in general, with 
regard to this theory which would interpret all 
these predictions of the restoration of Israel, as 
merely denoting the spiritual prosperity of the 
church in the millennial age, that such an inter¬ 
pretation is not only excluded by all the argu¬ 
ments for the literal meaning of these predic¬ 
tions hitherto given, but it utterly destroys 
the homogeneity of the prophecy, and so intro¬ 
duces the most hopeless confusion and perplex¬ 
ity into many of the plainest and simplest state¬ 
ments of the Word of God. For example,—to 
refer to a prophecy before cited,—it is written, 
“ He that scattered Israel will gather him.” 
Can there be any doubt that the gathering is 
predicated of the same people that was scat* 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


93 


tered, as the principle of homogeneity demands ? 
But, assuredly, the people that was scattered 
was not the New Testament church, but the na¬ 
tional Israel. Must not the gathering then be 
predicted of the national Israel also ? Can it 
be the spiritual Israel that is to be gathered ? 

But we are told that Israel was not only a na¬ 
tion, but the church , and that in these pro¬ 
phecies it is regarded simply in its aspect as the 
church. We answer, that it was not Israel re¬ 
garded as the church, that was scattered. The 
final great scattering of Israel took place in a.d. 
70, under Titus. The church, at that time, was 
not scattered at all. The scattering took effect, 
and is still in effect on Israel, not as the church , 
nor even as a part of the church, but as a nation. 
The restoration predicted must therefore be a 
restoration,—not of the church, for that was not 
scattered,—but of the nation of Israel, which, and 
which only, was scattered. Thus, to assert that 
the prophecies are not to be fulfilled in the na¬ 
tion of Israel, but in the church only, is not 
only to introduce bewildering confusion into a 
simple statement of Scripture, but is to bring 
the interpretation into conflict with the most 
undoubted facts of history. For there can be 
no doubt that the Scriptures represent the 
people which is to be restored as the same with 
that w T hich was scattered ; but the people which 


94 


THE 7EWE; OR . 


was, and still is scattered, is not the Hew Testa* 
ment church, but the historical nation of Israel, 
the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. 

Again, on this spiritualizing theory, how are 
we to account for the minute particularity of 
the language that is used in describing the fut- 

o o o 

ure restoration? Various cities of Israel are 
mentioned by name, as also its hills and mount¬ 
ains, the land is described, and its boundaries 
indicated. And yet we are often told that 
Jerusalem means the church; and Mount Zion, 
—that means the church too ; and the land that 
lay desolate, but shall be tilled and sown, and 
shall be desolate no more;—this all simply 
means that the church in the latter days shall 
be very prosperous ! And in this fashion are 
many of the fullest and most detailed statements 
reduced to a mere series of tautologies, for which 
it is not too much to say that the ordinary 
reader can see no reason, and in which he can 
discover no sense or meaning whatever. 

Let us, by way of illustration, take this theory 
of interpretation into Jer. xxx., xxxi., and see 
what light it will shed upon those chapters. We 
find in those chapters what purports to be a 
prophecy concerning Israel and concerning 
Judah. “ Israel,” we are told, “ means the spir¬ 
itual Israel.” Granted; then what does “ Judah” 
mean ? If the city,^-plainly Jerusalem,—that ia 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


95 


to “be builded again on her own heap,” de¬ 
note the church, “ our Zion,” as the phrase is, 
then w T hat are we to understand by the mount¬ 
ains of Samaria, in the next chapter, which are 
also, in the latter days, again to be covered with 
vineyards, according to verses 4, 5 ? If the re¬ 
building of Jerusalem be simply a mode of ex¬ 
pression to denote the prosperity of the millen¬ 
nial church, then what necessity for the particu¬ 
lar topographical specifications of chap. xxxi. 
38, 40, “ the tower of Hananeel,” “ the gate 
of the corner,” “the hill Gareb,” “ Goath,” 
“ the brook Kedron,” and “the horse gate” ? 

Or let us turn to Ezek. xxxvii. 15-22. Here 
we apparently have a very plain prediction of 
the future reunion of the two and the ten tribes 
as one nation. “ I will make them one nation 
in the land.” But we are told that this does 
not mean at all what it seems to mean. The ten 
tribes are never to be brought out of their ob¬ 
scurity, and united again as one nation with the 
descendants of Judah. This passage can only 
be intended as a figurative description of the 
coming time when all the divisions in the 
church shall be healed ; when all shall become 
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Bap¬ 
tists, or all alike be merged in the one church of 
the future, as the case may be ! But this again 
makes all into confusion, for the division to 



96 


THE JEWS; OR , 


which reference is made in this passage, was a 
well-known historical event. The limb was cer¬ 
tainly broken in a very literal sense, but it is 
to be mended only in a figurative sense; or, in 
other words, another breach is to be healed, in¬ 
stead tf/’that ancient breach between Israel and 
Judah, a breach, the very existence of which 
could by no possibility have occurred to those to 
whom the prophet was speaking. And then, 
again, as before, why all this topographical de¬ 
tail ? It is particularly stated that this reunion 
is to take place “ upon the mountains of Israel 
what does that mean ? 

Elsewhere, as in Zech. xiv., we are told of 
great physical convulsions which shall attend 
the restoration, and of the result of those con¬ 
vulsions in permanent changes in the face of the 
country in the south of Palestine, all which are 
indicated again with careful precision. How, 
on the figurative theory, can one possibly account 
for the introduction of these minute details of 
physical changes ? What, if this be all symbol¬ 
ism, can one imagine to be intended by the 
cleaving of the Mount of Olives, and the par¬ 
ticular statement that this cleavage shall be 
“ from east to west ” ? Or what could be the 
intention of the statement that all the land, 
within certain defined geographical limits, is to 
become an elevated plain? We submit that, 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


97 

whatever difficulties there may he in taking 
such words as these in their obvious, literal 
smse, they do not compare with those which 
beset ns, if we venture broadly to assert that 
all this is merely figurative of great prosperity 
in the latter day church, to be introduced by 
great judgments.* This method of interpreta¬ 
tion simply makes a large part of the prophe¬ 
cies to consist of mere words to which it is im 
possible to assign any definite meaning. 

Again, if ail these prophecies are to be inter¬ 
preted of the spiritual Israel, or the New Testa¬ 
ment church, then it is logically impossible to 
make out a Scriptural warrant even for the na¬ 
tional salvation of the Jews from their sins. 
Tor nothing can be plainer than this, that the 
people to whom the temporal blessings are 
promised is the same with the people to whom 


* The best proof of this is to be found in the many 
attempts of the allegorizing commentators to find out 
some spiritual meaning -which, on their principles 
of interpretation, might conceivably be attached to 
such details. It is not too much to say that the re¬ 
sult has often been such as to compel a smile. Dr. Ho- 
ratius Bonar has given a number of pertinent examples 
which well illustrate this remark, in the book published 
by him in answer to Dr. Brown’s work on The Second 
Advent. See, The Coming and Kingdom of the Lord 
Jesus, by H. Bonar, D.D., pp. 213, 221. 

7 





98 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the spiritual blessing of a universal conversion 
to God is promised. If, therefore, one insist 
that under the form of the temporal blessings 
to Israel, the prophets refer merely to spiritual 
blessings to come in the latter days upon the 
New Testament church, then we insist that the 
connected promise of conversion to God, must 
refer to the New Testament church also. Will 
that, then, stand ? This we are absolutely for¬ 
bidden to say. The apostle Paul has settled the 
question as regards the conversion of the na¬ 
tional Israel, by his plain words in the Epistle to 
the Homans, chap. xi. In that chapter he 
takes a passage out of the very heart of Isaiah’s 
great prophecy concerning Israel, in Is. xl.- 
lxvi., namely, lix. 20, and takes it for granted, 
that the Israel therein spoken of, is the Jewish 
nation, even that same people whose “ casting 
away was the reconciling of the world.” If, 
then, we are thus required, on inspired author¬ 
ity, to interpret “Israel” of the Jewish nation 
when the spiritual promises are concerned, what 
right has any one to assert that when, in an¬ 
other part of the same integral prophecy, even 
the immediate context, temporal blessings are 
promised to that same Israel which has all along 
been the subject of prophecy, now, of a sudden, 
“ Israel ” no longer means the Jewish nation, 
but the church of the New Testament ? Such 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


99 


an interpretation, so far from having the en¬ 
dorsement of Paul, contradicts his plain teach¬ 
ing, and would, we are persuaded, have filled 
him with amazement. 

All this is so clear that a large proportion of 
interpreters have felt themselves compelled to 
admit that the prophecies in question must lind 
their fulfilment, not in the church as such, but 
in Israel as a nation. That the Scriptures 
clearly predict a national conversion of the 
Jewish people, is by such fully admitted. That 
the prophecies which, according to the letter, 
speak of a future regathering in the land, must 
be fulfilled in the Jewish nation, no less than 
the predictions of spiritual blessings, this also is 
by such fully admitted. And yet, we are told, 
these promises do not mean what they seem to 
say; they are to be taken in a spiritual sense, 
as merely poetic representations, under the 
forms of the Old Testament life, of the con¬ 
verted Jewish nation. Such expressions as the 
rebuilding of Jerusalem, the renewed fruitful¬ 
ness of the land, etc., etc., are, we are re¬ 
minded, fit and beautiful symbols of the spir¬ 
itual blessings which elsewhere in more literal 
terms are undoubtedly promised to Israel. 

But it is impossible to carry this interpretation 
through. In the first place, as in the case of the 
other theory, the minuteness of detail in the 






100 


THE JEWS; OR , 


descriptions of this predicted restoration, are ut< 
terly unaccountable on the supposition that all 
is only a figurative representation of merely 
spiritual blessings. Besides, this interpretation 
compels us continually to disregard the analogy 
of the context. These predictions often occur 
in the midst of others concerning the scattering 
of the people, and the desolation of the land; 
the threats and corresponding promises are 
often combined in the same construction. But 
if the former have proved to be not mere fig¬ 
urative descriptions of the spiritual desolation 
of the nation, what right have we to regard the 
latter as mere figurative illustrations of - its 
spiritual refreshment ? It may all be very true 
that the restoration to the land fitly symbolizes 
great spiritual prosperity and fruitfulness; no 
one will dispute that. But so also did the his¬ 
torical scattering and captivity of Israel, and the 
literal desolation of their land, no less fitly sym¬ 
bolize the spiritual desolation and unfruitful¬ 
ness of Israel. Yet the Jew would have made 
a sad mistake, if, in the days of Josiali, he had 
therefore argued that the prediction of the cap¬ 
tivity of the people and the desolation of their 
land, was not to have a literal and historical ful¬ 
filment. And if the fitness of the symbolism 
did not exclude the most literal, visible realiza¬ 
tion of those symbols in the one case, how can 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^Q1 

we safely argue from the fitness of the symbols, 
that we need to expect no literal fulfilment in 
the other case ? 

Still further, be it observed, that these prom¬ 
ises of restoration to the land do not appear as 
forms of expression alternative with the prom¬ 
ises of converting grace, as if substituted for 
them, but, on the contrary, are coupled with 
them, as blessings additional and consequent 
upon them. A chronological order of succes¬ 
sion in the fulfilment of each class of prom¬ 
ises, is distinctly set forth in many passages. 
Thus we read: 

“ I will take you from among the heathen, and 
gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into 
your owu land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and 
from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” .... 

“Thus saith the Lo:d God; In the day that I shall 
have cleansed you from all your iniquities; I will cause 
you to dwell in your cities, and the wastes shall be 
builded, and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas 
it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.” * 

In these passages we find a clear indication of 
a relation of chronological order between the dif¬ 
ferent events predicted. The spiritual cleansing 
is represented as subsequent in time to the res¬ 
toration to the land, and the prosperity in the 


* Ezek. xxxvi. 24, 23, 33. 







THE JEWS; OR , 


102 

land, again, as consequent upon the “ cleansing.” 
How, then, is it possible to believe that all these 
varied promises of a cleansing from iniquity, 
the dwelling in their cities, the building of the 
wastes, the tilling of the desolate land,—all 
mean simply one and the same thing, namely, 
Israel’s spiritual prosperity consequent upon 
forgiven sin ? 

But it is rejoined with the greatest assurance 
that the literal fulfilment of many of these 
prophecies, has become an absolute impossibil¬ 
ity. This is argued, for example, on the 
ground that many of the nations spoken of in 
these predictions of the restoration, have long 
ago ceased to exist. If this is so, then, it is 
said, this proves that all those parts of the 
prophecies which refer to these nations, must 
be taken figuratively ; and, therefore, the whole 
of any such prediction, at least in so far as it 
may speak of a restoration of Israel to their 
land, must be figurative also. 

To this we reply that the argument assumes 
a principle as true, which is contradicted by the 
most manifest facts of Scripture. It is assumed 
that if anythingin a given prediction be proven 
to be figurative, then the whole description in 
which it occurs, must be figurative also. But 
this assumption stands in contradiction to ad¬ 
mitted facts. Thus, e.g ., in Ps. xxii., it is uni- 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


103 

versally admitted by evangelical expositors, 
that we have a remarkable prophecy of the 
sufferings of Messiah. In that description of 
His sufferings, the Man of Sorrows is made to 
say, (vs. 12,) “ Many bulls have compassed me ; 
strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round 
and again, (vs. 16,) “ Dogs have compassed 
me and, again, (vs. 21,) “ Save me from the 
lion’s mouth; for thou hast heard me from the 
horns of the unicorns.” That these are all 
figurative expressions, denoting the Messiah’s 
enemies, all will agree. But shall we therefore 
argue that because there were no literal bulls, 
dogs and lions around the cross, therefore all 
this description is figurative ? Because the 
“ bulls of Bashan ” were figurative, was verse 8 
also figurative, “ All they that see me laugh me 
to scorn, .... saying, He trusted in God that 
He would deliver him; let him deliver him seeing 
that he delighted in him.” Or, because “ the 
dogs” were not literal in verse 16, was then the 
piercing of hands and feet, predicted in the same 
verse, not literal? Or, again, because there was 
no literal “lion’s mouth,” was verse 18 only in¬ 
tended to predict a figurative parting of gar¬ 
ments, and a figurative casting of lots upon 
a figurative vesture ? 

These questions answer themselves. And yet 
Dr. Barnes, e.g ., in his Commentary on Is. xi., 












104 


THE JEWS; OR , 


argues that because the Philistines of verse 14 
are now non-existent, and cannot be literally 
taken, therefore the prediction of the return of 
Israel to their land, which these words con¬ 
tain, must be taken as figurative also, of spirit¬ 
ual blessings to be experienced by the Jews in 
the latter days. Why he should have allowed 
that the reference of the prophecy is to the lit¬ 
eral Israel in any sense, on that principle, we 
are quite at a loss to see. But why is this mode 
of argument any more valid in Is. xi., than 
in Ps. xxii. \ 

But in the second place, be it observed, that 
according to the analogy of prophecy, if it were 
desired to refer to the enemies of Israel at the 
time of their distant final restoration, they 
could hardly have been designated except under 
the names of enemies in those days known to 
them. But that would surely not prove that 
therefore everything in the prophecy was to be 
figuratively understood. We have predicted, in 
Is. vii. 23, 24, a future desolation of the land 
of Israel, so great that into its vineyards men 
would come to hunt “ with arrows and with 
bows.” And there to-day lies the land, desolate 
as predicted. But who would venture to irgue 
that the present desolation could not have been 
included in that prediction, because arrows and 
bows are mentioned, instead of guns and rifles. 


I 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^Q5 

as used at present? If weapons were to be 
mentioned, this could be only under terms 
familiar to the people at the time. Such may 
as possibly be the case with regard to vari¬ 
ous prophecies which speak of the enemies of 
Israel in the latter days, under the names of 
the enemies of ancient time. Would any one 
venture to affirm that a prophecy of a yet fut¬ 
ure literal restoration of Israel could not be 
made, if it were necessary to mention the ene¬ 
mies of Israel at that time, except they were 
mentioned by their modern names, as, e. g., 
Germans, Turks, or Russians ? 

As regards the argument derived from this 
class of passages against a future literal restora¬ 
tion of Israel to their land, this might abundantly 
suffice to show how utterly invalid it is. And 
yet it is quite possible that there may be more 
literality, e. g., in Is. xi. 14, than some imagine. 
If, for example, while the old Philistines were 
extinct, there should yet be at the time of the 
final return, another people hostile to the Jews, 
inhabiting that ancient territory of Philistia, 
would the prophecy be figurative, if it called 
them Philistines ? But we may say yet more. In 
the light of the most recent and scientific ob¬ 
servations it is not so certain, after all, that all 
the descendants of Israel’s ancient enemies 
are quite extinct and off the stage of history. 











106 


THE JEWS; OR , 


The ethnology of the scattered tribes living in 
and immediately around Palestine is too little 
made out, to speak with confidence on matters 
of detail. But it is to be noted in this connex¬ 
ion that Lieut. Conder, of the Pah Explor. Soc., 
tells us that the fellahin , or peasantry, of mod¬ 
ern Palestine, are a people “ apparently of 
very ancient stock, which is still preserved com¬ 
paratively pure”; and he is of opinion that 
their origin may be traced u from the older in¬ 
habitants, and perhaps from the pre-Israelitish 
population which .... was .... never entirely 
uprooted.” * Thus it appears that the lineal 
descendants of Israel’s ancient enemies may be 
still existent in the region in question. 

And this leads us to the answer to another 
constantly reiterated objection to the future 
literal return of the Jews, that the same pro¬ 
phets which predict a return of the two tribes, 
whose descendants alone it is supposed we 
have among us, predict a return of the ten 
tribes also. But the ten tribes, we are told, are 
lost; they cannot therefore return to the land. 
The prophecies, therefore, which seem to pre¬ 
dict such a return of the ten tribes, cannot be 
taken literally; whence, by parity of reasoning, 
it is plain that the return of the descendants of 


* Tent Life in Palestine , vol. ii., pp. 217, 218. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


107 

Judah and Benjamin cannot be taken literally 
either. 

As to this allegation that the ten tribes are 
now non-existent, that they have all lost their 
identity, and been merged in the sea of na¬ 
tions, often as the assertion is made, we have 
simply to say, that up to the present time, it is 
not proven. We have to learn much more 
about the ethnology of the various tribes of in¬ 
terior Asia than we know as yet, before anyone 
can prove that.no remnant of the ten tribes is 
yet existing, Not only that, but a few emi¬ 
nent scholars and competent observers have 
thought they had facts to prove the contrary. 

We cannot in this work enter into a review 
of all the theories which have been started by 
one and another as to the present locality of the 
missing tribes. Many of these have been, most 
will agree, sufficiently absurd. Still it is of con- 
sequence to observe that the ten tribes were not, 
in New Testament times, supposed to be lost, 
as Acts xxvi. 7, and James i. 1, sufficiently 
testify. Much later still, Benjamin of Tudela, 
the noted Jewish traveller of the twelfth cent¬ 
ury, is said to state that he found in Central 
Asia in his time, Jews descended from the ten 
captive tribes. We may note also the fact, that 
the people whom we know as Afghans call 
themselves the Bani Israil , or the “ Children of 









108 


THE JEWS; OR , 


Israel,” and claim, according to one form of 
their traditions, to have descended from a fam¬ 
ily of Israel that lived in Samaria before the 
first captivity. While there may be, no doubt, 
elements of error in their tradition, yet to the 
mind of not a few intimately acquainted with 
them, there has appeared reason to believe that 
it is by no means without foundation.* More 
defiuite is the testimony of the Russian traveller, 
Dantschenko, who published, about a year or two 
ago, a narrative of his travels in the Caucasus, 
to the effect that in the interior of that country, 
he found a tribe of Jews who claimed that they 
had lived there since the days of the captivity 
of Shalmanezer. As appearing to substantiate 
their claim, he further tells us that he found 
them ignorant of Talmudic literature, as also of 
the building of the second temple, and that they 
still were using the old Jewish names in use in 
the days of the wanderings and of the first 
kings.f Illustrations might be added, but these 
will suffice to show that it is by no means so 
certain that the descendants of the ten tribes no 
longer exist, as to warrant this confident asser- 

* See for a brief account of this tradition, the Ency - 
clopcedia Britannica , article “ Afghanistan.” The wri¬ 
ter, Col. H. Yule, C.B., F.R.G.S., leaves the question of 
their Israelitish origin undecided. 

f So the N, Y. Evangelist gives his testimony. 









PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

tion, that we cannot expect a literal return of 
the Jews to Palestine, because the restoration of 
the ten tribes has become impossible. 

It is urged again, and with much plausibility, 
that if we interpret the restoration of Israel to 
their land literally, we are then obliged, if con¬ 
sistent, to believe that the whole Jewish ritual 
will be re-established and made obligatory upon 
all nations. This, we are reminded, is no less 
clearly predicted, if we take the letter of the 
prophets, than the return to the land. Isaiah 
seems to-intimate the observance in that age of 
the feasts of the new moons; * Malachi tells 
us that in every place “incense shall be offered ” 
to God’s name, u and a pure offering.”f Zecha- 
riah tells us that all flesh shall come up year by 
year to Jerusalem “ to keep the feast of taber¬ 
nacles.” $ Hence it is insisted, if we will un¬ 
derstand the restoration to the land in a literal 
sense, then we are logically obliged to maintain, 
the re-establishment of the whole Mosaic econ¬ 
omy, or, at least, of all such parts of it as are 
specially named in these predictions. 

To go into a detailed examination of all the 
passages that are brought up in this connexion 
would unduly extend our argument, and weary 
the reader. But it is not necessary. With- 


* Is. lxvi. 23. 


t Mai. i. 11. JZech. xiv. 16, 17. 




110 


THE JEWS; OR , 


out such detailed interpretation, the following 
considerations seem to us conclusive against 
this common objection. In the first place, as 
remarked above, if the worship of the age after 
the great restoration were to be mentioned at 
all, it were most natural, if not necessary, to 
describe it under those forms, with which alone 
the Jews of those times were familiar. Again, 
as above, it is not true, as the objection 
assumes, that, if we make anything in a given 
prophecy literal, we are therefore logically 
bound to make all the rest literal. That can 
only be true when the cases are analogous. But 
the two cases before us are not analogous. In 
the first place, the predictions of the return to 
the land at least involve no impossibility. But 
that all flesh, in the broadest literal sense of 
that phrase, should go up “ every year to Jeru¬ 
salem,” as Zechariah’s words have it, does in¬ 
volve what all candid men will probably admit 
to be a practical impossibility.* Here, then, is 
one clear difference; the one class of predic¬ 
tions involves the impossible, if literally taken ; 
the other does not. 


* Obviously, however, as regards this particular, the 
impossibility disappears,—though not the literality,—if 
we admit the interpretation of some, that Zechariah 
here predicts an annual resort of all nations to Jerusa¬ 
lem, in the persons of their delegated representatives. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

In the second place, the literal interpretation 
of the predictions of the return to the land is 
sustained by a positive argument, scriptural and 
historical, the very great cogency of which has 
been repeatedly confessed by very many, who, 
nevertheless, for whatsoever reason, have not 
felt able to accept the conclusion. On the other 
hand, with regard to the predictions of a future 
worship, in terms of the Jewish ritual, the case 
is exactly the reverse. In this case the argu¬ 
ment from other Scripture, instead of being 
apparently for it, seems, to the great majority, 
to be clearly against it. The Epistle to the 
Hebrews certainly teaches that the Mosaic ritual 
ceased when the Divine High Priest, the Anti¬ 
type, appeared. If so, then it is plain that no 
one has any right to interpret any prophecy in 
such sense as to teach the contrary. Hence it 
is clear that the two cases under consideration 
are not analogous, but stand in clearest con¬ 
trast with each other. To argue, therefore, 
that because we take the one literally, we are 
therefore bound to take the other literally also, 
is to assume that a strict analogy exists, where, 
in fact, there is not analogy, but contrast. The 
objection, therefore, falls to the ground, as hav¬ 
ing no relevancy to the point at issue. All 
reasonable expositors, on either side of this 
question, will grant the principle, however they 









112 


THE JEWS; OR ; 


may differ in its application, that Scripture 
must ~be allowed to interpret Scripture. Surely 
no one will insist that if one interpret literally 
the predictions of Israel’s restoration to their 
land, he is thereby logically precluded from the 
application of this principle to define, as far as 
may be possible, the limits of literalism. But, 
if there be any who, through thoughtlessness 
or misapprehension, judge otherwise, still we 
think it of much more consequence that the in¬ 
terpreter of God’s Word take heed to check 
his interpretations by that Word, than to main¬ 
tain, at all hazards, a reputation for “ consist¬ 
ency.” 

In this same connexion, when all other ob¬ 
jections are exhausted, we are often asked tri¬ 
umphantly what, on the literal theory, we will 
do with the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, 
which, according to the letter, seem to fore¬ 
tell nothing less than a future rebuilding of 
the temple on Mount Zion in the Holy Land, 
and the restoration in it of a sacrificial service ? 
To this question, however, it may be most 
fairly and reasonably rejoined to those who 
differ with us, “And what, on your figura¬ 
tive theory, will you do with those chap¬ 
ters % ” If there is too great difficulty in the 
interpretation which has been suggested by 
some eminent and evangelical expositors of 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 113 

prophecy, that a special form of service will be 
ordained for restored and converted Israel in 
that new dispensation which their conversion 
will inaugurate,—not after the manner, indeed, 
of the ancient typical sacrifices, which were 
done away in Christ, but with a retrospective 
and sacramental intent,*—if this, we say, be too 
hard to be received, as very easily it may be; 
and if we also reject the interpretation of others, 
which refers those chapters in a conditional 
sense to the past,f and content ourselves with 
simply saying that we are not certain what these 
chapters do mean; does it therefore follow that 
the w T hole system of interpretation is false, be¬ 
cause in its light we cannot arrive at an infal- 
lible understanding of every prediction in the 
Word of God ? 

If, indeed, those who reject the literal inter¬ 
pretation had been signally successful in dealing 
with these difficult chapters, then, truly, one 
might with reason make it a test of the lit¬ 
eral interpretation of the Jewish prophecies, 
that it should, without fail, conduct us to as 
clear an explanation of that portion of the 
Word. But it is, we may safely say; notorious ? 

* Sc Dr. H. Bonar, in The Coming and Kingdom of 
the Lord Jesus , Part II., Chap. ii. 

f So Prof. Delitzscli: see his Messianic Prophecies, 

p. 88. 


8 












114 


THE JEWS; OR , 


that if the literalist has failed in dealing with 
these famous chapters, those who oppose him 
have here failed at least no less signally. And 
if failure here prove that we must reject the 
system of the literalist, assuredly, a failure no 
less conspicuous on the other side, must no less 
prove that we must reject the other system also. 
It were hardly wise, then, in the face of the 
facts, that either side should make the interpre¬ 
tation of Ezekiel, xl.-xlviii., the crucial test of a 
system of interpretation. Else, we may very pos¬ 
sibly find that we shall have to reject all sys¬ 
tems of interpretation alike, and give up in de¬ 
spair all study of unfulfilled prophecy as—despite 
the express command of God to the contrary— 
many who call themselves Christians insist that 
we should do. For ourselves, we can only say 
that whatever difficulties encompass the literal 
interpretation of the last chapters of Ezekiel 
and a few other unfulfilled predictions of simi¬ 
lar character, to our own mind, they do by no 
means compare with those which we find be¬ 
setting us, if we set aside all the positive argu¬ 
ment already given in this chapter, as null and 
void, and assume that, at the most, nothing 
more is predicted for Israel than that somehow, 
at some time, they shall all be converted to the 
Messiah, and then be merged as a nation in the 
general body of Gentile believers. 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. qqg 

It lias even been objected further, by some, 
against the literal interpretation of the prophe¬ 
cies of Israel’s future restoration, that in that 
case we are obliged to take literally all that is 
foretold in connexion therewith, of marvellous 
physical phenomena to accompany that restora¬ 
tion. Such, for example, are the earthquake 
and the cleaving of the Mount of Olives, the 
levelling and the elevation of the land in Pales¬ 
tine “from Geba to Pirn mon,” predicted by 
Zechariah ;* the destroying of the “ tongue of 
the Egyptian sea,” predicted by Isaiah,f etc., etc. 

To this we answer that the objection can only 
be of force upon one of two assumptions; namely, 
either that a miracle is impossible, or that God 
has elsewhere declared that there shall be noth¬ 
ing miraculous in connexion with the restora¬ 
tion of Israel. The former position can only 
be maintained by an unbeliever in the inspira¬ 
tion of the Scripture. As for the latter, we 
ask, where , in the Word, has God declared that 
lie will work no miracle in the day of Israel’s 
restoration ? As regards the special predictions 
instanced, it may be further noted that the spe¬ 
cial phenomena which are predicted are not 
even in themselves impossible. Physical con¬ 
vulsions and consequent changes far more ex¬ 
tensive and stupendous have often taken place 


* Zech. xiv. 4, et seq. 


f Is. xi. 15. 




116 


THE JEWS; OR , 


in time past. Neither is it beyond the power 
of the God of Israel, the God who made the 
earth and the heavens, to produce such changes, 
if He please. How, then, can any man who 
calls himself a Christian, venture to maintain 
that the occurrence of such events is impos¬ 
sible, and that an interpretation which makes 
the prophet predict them is, therefore, to be 
rejected ? 

Indeed, this objection proves, if anything, 
then quite too much for any but a rationalist. 
For that miraculous phenomena should happen 
in connexion with redemptive history in the 
future can only be held incredible on grounds 
which equally forbid us to believe that such 
events have ever occurred in the past,—a 
position which too many so-called expounders 
of Scripture in modern times have not hesi¬ 
tated to maintain. But Christians, at least, 
must believe that the God who “ divided the 
Bed Sea into parts, .... and made Israel to 
pass through the midst of it,” in an age that is 
past, is certainly equal to destroying the tongue 
of the Egyptian sea in the future, as Isaiah 
assuredly says that He will. If it was not in¬ 
consistent with the method of the divine gov¬ 
ernment thus to interpose in the redemptive 
exodus of the past, why should it be any more 
inconsistent therewith that He should thus inter- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

pose in the greater exodus of the future? 
Rather should we, in the light of the history 
of redemption, argue from the examples urged 
for the literal interpretation, than against it. 
It stands on record that three great crises of 
Israel’s history, the exodus, the crucifixion, and 
the destruction of Jerusalem, in a.d. JO, have 
been signalized by preternatural portents in 
physical nature. One final consummating crisis 
in the history of that people is predicted as yet 
to come; and when the prophets tell us that 
then also, again, even material nature shall wit¬ 
ness the presence and the power of Jehovah, 
God of Israel, is it not plain that all the anal¬ 
ogy of the past is for the literal understanding 
of such words, and of the prophecy with which 
they are connected, and not against it ? Stands 
it not plainly written, “ According to the days 
of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, will I 
show unto him marvellous things”?* What 
possible objection can there be to supposing 
that these words mean exactly what they say ? 
A system of interpretation which professes to 
receive with unquestioning faith all accounts of 
a supernatural work of God in nature in ages 
long gone by, and yet strenuously denies the 
probability or possibility of any like interven¬ 
tions in the future, is, to our mind, beyond com- 


* Mic. vii. 15. 





118 


THE JEWS; OX, 


prehension. To say that all who thus interpret 
prophecy are rationalists, would no doubt be 
unjust; but wherein the assumption, which 
only can give force to this objection to the lit¬ 
eral interpretation of prophecy, differs from 
that which unbelievers apply to test the verity 
of the redemptive history , full as it is of mira¬ 
cle, we are quite unable to see. 

Others there are, again, who object to the lit¬ 
eral interpretation of the restoration prophe¬ 
cies that, if it be granted, then we are logi¬ 
cally compelled to admit that a theocratic gov¬ 
ernment is yet to be set up on earth over Israel 
and the Gentiles. That this may be so, we are 
by no means concerned to deny. That, how¬ 
ever, if this be so, it is a fatal objection to the 
system of interpretation, which should warrant 
us in setting aside all the positive argument we 
have considered, it is not easy to see. To 
prove this, it would be necessary to prove that 
such a theocracy is either impossible, or unde¬ 
sirable, or contrary to God’s revealed plan for 
the future. That it is impossible, no believer 
in the Scripture can affirm ; for, according to 
the Scripture, there has been a theocratic gov¬ 
ernment on earth already, even over this same 
people Israel, whose only King and Lawgiver at 
the first, was God. What has been once is not 
impossible. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


119 


Is it, then, undesirable that there should ever 
be a theocratic government for man again? 
Are man’s modern experiments in self-govern¬ 
ment, his republics, democracies, and constitu¬ 
tional monarchies, such an undoubted and ad¬ 
mirable success, that even a theocracy could not 
be better ? Or is there any sign apparent that 
they will yet become so perfect that even a the¬ 
ocracy would not be an improvement? Such 
questions answer themselves. Is it, then, per¬ 
haps revealed that however possible and even 
desirable, yet God has sovereignly determined 
that He never will give to sinful man again the 
blessing of a theocratic rule ? Where in all the 
Bible is there a single clear declaration to that 
effect ? There are very many which, if taken to 
mean simply what they say, declare that this is 
God’s most gracious purpose; where is on© 
equally clear to the contrary ? And if not, where 
then is the point of this common objection ? 

But then we are told that the literal applica¬ 
tion of all these prophecies to a return of the 
Jews as a nation to the land of their fathers, 
compels us also to believe, according to the same 
prophecies, that the Jewish nation, in the future, 
when converted, will be exalted to great tem¬ 
poral power and eminence above all the Gen¬ 
tile nations; w T hich, we are told, is utterly in¬ 
consistent with the spirit and express teachings 






120 


THE JEWS ; OR , 


of the Gospel. And in proof of this latter as¬ 
sertion, are commonly quoted those words of 
Paul, “In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew 
nor Greek.” * 

But this argument unaccountably overlooks 
the obvious facts of the providence of God, 
and rests on a misunderstanding of the Script¬ 
ure. As for the providence of God, is it not 
plain that no equality of nations, as regards the 
privileges of redemption, has ever carried with 
it equality in everything else? Is it not a fact, 
for example, that the Anglo-Saxon race is at 
the present time exalted, both as regards relig¬ 
ious privilege and commanding political influ¬ 
ence, to a kind of primacy among the races of 
mankind ? But if the present exaltation of the 
Anglo-Saxon race in these respects, be not in¬ 
consistent with the principles of the Gospel, 
why, forsooth, should it be inconsistent there¬ 
with that any other race, and, most of all, the 
Jewish race, should be—when converted to 
God—exalted in power and privilege above all 
Gentile nations, as assuredly the Word of God, 
so far as the letter of its predictions goes, de¬ 
clares they will be ? Why, in a word, should it 
be held quite consistent with the grace of the 
Gospel that the American or English nation 


* Gal. iii. 28. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^1 

should be exalted in temporal blessings above 
other nations in the present, and yet utterly in¬ 
consistent with the grace of the Gospel, that 
repentant Israel should be thus exalted in the 
future? 

And as the objection before us is not sus¬ 
tained by the providence of God, so neither is 
it by His Word. We read, indeed, “In Christ 
Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek”; and 
that teaches, in the opinion of not a few the¬ 
ologians, that the Jews, when converted as a 
nation, must be amalgamated with the Gen¬ 
tiles, and that their national existence will 
cease; because, otherwise, we should have to 
believe that they would have, as a nation, a 
higher place of privilege than the Gentiles. 
But let us not stop, as the wont is, in the 
middle of the passage, but read on and see 
whither this line of argument will conduct us. 
“Neither Jew nor Greek, nor male nor fe¬ 
male ”! Are these last words, then, also meant 
to teach that the distinction of sex is done away 
in Christ ? And if not, then how does the pre¬ 
vious clause teach that national and racial dis¬ 
tinctions, as between Jew and Gentile, will be 
done away in Christ, so that the J ews will not, 
when converted, remain a separate nation ? 

Nor does the passage cited even warrant the 
inference that a future exaltation of the con- 




122 


THE JEWS; OR , 


verted Jewish nation, is inconsistent with the 
principles and spirit of the Gospel., For the 
equality of male and female in the Gospel, was 
not so understood by Paul, but that he also 
taught, and that with emphasis, that the man 
was “ the head of the woman,” * and that she 
was therefore to “submit” herself to the man, 
and “ be under obedience.” f If, then, these 
words to the Galatians do not teach that the 
exaltation of the man above the woman is done 
away in Christ, how can any one justly infer 
that the previous clause teaches that, according 
to the Gospel, the Jewish nation cannot, when 
converted, be exalted in power and privilege 
above the Greek or any other Gentile people ? 
This common objection to the doctrine of the 
literal restoration of the Jews has thus as little 
or even less basis than the foregoing. 

Others again there are, and that very many, 
who would have us dismiss the subject of these 
Jewish prophecies altogether. They ask—often 
with ill-concealed impatience—What in any case 
does it matter how we understand these prophe¬ 
cies? Of what possible practical consequence 
can it be, whether we understand them in one 
way or another? To this we answer, in the 
first place, that the objection, as thus often put, 


* 1 Cor. xi* 8. 


11 Cor. xiy. 84. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


123 

is irreverent. It implies that God has fried 
up a very large part of the Bible with predic¬ 
tions which are of no practical use. Does it 
befit us ignorant sinners thus to sit in judg¬ 
ment over God’s Word? Is it likely that God 
has revealed what we need not concern our¬ 
selves to understand? Should we not rather 
infer that since, undeniably, very great promi¬ 
nence is given in the Bible to this restoration 
of Israel, it must be, in the mind of God, a 
matter of gi'eat consequence, which it concerns 
us much that we rightly understand ? Nor is 
the practical importance of a right under¬ 
standing of these prophecies hard to show. 

It is of great importance, in the first place, 
because these same prophecies everywhere an¬ 
nounce the most overwhelming judgments as 
to fall upon the Gentile nations in connexion 
with Israel’s future restoration. If the predic¬ 
tions of blessing for the Jews are to be taken 
literally, then beyond doubt the predictions of 
judgments at that same time to be visited on 
the Gentile nations, must be taken literally too. 
And if this should prove to be the true inter¬ 
pretation, then because of a false theory of in¬ 
terpretation to have drifted into such days of 
trouble unawares and be taken by surprise, must 
plainly be a very serious thing. If judgment 
is decreed from heaven against this guilty 



124 


THE JEWS; OR , 


world, and if only a single nation has the prom¬ 
ise, as a nation, of being carried safely through 
it,* then it cannot but be of immense impor¬ 
tance for us Gentile Christians generally that 
we know it and proclaim it to the church, and 
to this self-satisfied, Christ-rejecting world. 

And this leads us very naturally to a further 
reason, which is given by the inspired apostle, 
for the importance of a knowledge and right 
understanding of the predictions of the Word 
concerning God’s purposes with Israel: namely, 
that we Gentiles “ be not wise in our own con¬ 
ceits.” f According to the apostle Paul, there¬ 
fore, a right understanding of God’s purposes 
of future grace to Israel, is a divinely or¬ 
dained means to keep down among us Gentiles, 
our overweening national and ecclesiastical 
pride. Never had this reason more of force 
and weight than in our own time. 

Again, the question of the interpretation of 
these prophecies concerning Israel's restoration, 
is of no small consequence in an apologetic way. 
Prof. Kuenen refers to these as yet unful¬ 
filled prophecies of Israel’s restoration as con¬ 
clusive proof of his position that many of the 
so-called predictions of the Old Testament 
have failed, and therefore we have no evidence 


* Jer. xlyi. 27, 28. 


t Rom. xi. 25. 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^25 

therein of supernatural inspiration. His proof 
is, in a word, simply this, that Israel has never 
been restored, and that the restoration lias now 
become impossible; ergo, the prediction is a 
failure. JSTow it is plain that what answer the 
Christian apologist will give to this line of ar¬ 
gument, will be determined altogether by the 
interpretation which he gives to the prophecies 
assailed. To grant so readily, as some have 
done, the premise of the rationalists, as given 
above, admit the impossibility of a fulfilment 
now in any literal sense, and then insist upon a 
“ spiritual sense, 5 ’ as the true and exhaustive 
fulfilment of the prophecy, and the only way of 
escaping the conclusion which unbelief seeks to 
force upon us, seems to us as perilous as we be¬ 
lieve it to be premature and unnecessary. Not 
thus, in our judgment, will unbelief be silenced, 
and the battles of the Word be won. Yet, if 
one reject the literal interpretation of these 
prophecies, this is the best that can be done ! 

But, on the other hand, if we hold to the 
literal interpretation, although it doubtless will 
not free the defender of the truth from all diffi¬ 
culties, and something will still be left to faith, 
yet we submit that it pu£s him at a great ad¬ 
vantage as regards the assault of unbelief. We 
deny utterly, and shall show, further on, solid 
historic reasons for denying outright the hold 







126 


THE JEWS; OR, 


assertion of Prof. Kuenen’s premise, that the 
fulfilment of many prophecies in the literal 
restoration of the Jewish nationality in Pales¬ 
tine has now become impossible ! Against this 
assertion we place the practically unanimous 
testimony of the secular press of Christendom, 
that such a restoration is—even in this late day 
—quite possible, if not desirable; and that, 
therefore, the assertion of unbelief to the con¬ 
trary, however necessary to the maintenance of 
a theory, is, at least, quite premature, and the 
consequent conclusion against the inspiration 
of the Word of God, unproven. 

The apologetic importance of this question 
of interpretation is further apparent in its 
bearing on the question of missions to the 
heathen. It is constantly objected that missions 
never have converted the world, and thence that 
a world-conversion is not to be expected. We 
are pointed to the obvious fact, that not even 
in countries like Europe and America, where 
the Gospel has been preached for centuries, 
is there any sign of anything like a universal 
conversion, in the Bible sense of that word. 
Hence, it is argued, missions are a failure, and 
may as well be abandoned. Much might be 
said in answer to this. Especially would we 
insist, for example, that the argument tells a 
fortiori against all Christian work for saving 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

men in Christian lands; since statistics clearly 
show that, in proportion to laborers and money 
employed, results in conversion are less— e.g ., in 
Great Britain and the United States—than in 
the foreign mission fields. But, in the line of 
the argument of this book, it is of importance 
to observe that, apart from all other considera¬ 
tions, a right understanding of the position of 
Israel in God’s plan of redemption for the 
world, deprives this objection at once of all its 
force. For if God has indeed, as we believe, 
revealed in His Word that it is not in His 
purpose and plan that the nations shall, as na¬ 
tions , turn unto His Son until first all Is¬ 
rael shall be saved, then obviously it is quite 
irrelevant to object that God has not accom¬ 
plished prior to Israel’s restoration, that 
which He has only promised to bring to pass 
after that event. Meantime, the present preach¬ 
ing of the Gospel is accomplishing exactly what 
God before said that it should accomplish; 
namely, taking out from the Gentiles a people 
for His name.* Where, then, is the failure ? 

But, besides the practical bearing of this 
question of the literal interpretation upon mis¬ 
sionary work in general, it is of special conse¬ 
quence in its relation to evangelistic work among 
the Jews. Men often go to the Jew and be- 


* Acts xv. 14. 









128 


THE JEWS; OR , 


gill to argue with him, as well they may, by 
calling his attention to the stern literality with 
which the predicted curses have fallen on his 
nation, ever since their rejection of the Messiah. 
He perhaps rejoins by referring also to those 
other predictions which tell of a coming resto¬ 
ration of his nation in the kingdom of Messiah, 
when they u shall be the head, and not the 
tail,”* as now. lie is told at once that he 
quite misunderstands that class of prophecies; 
that they refer only to spiritual, and not to any 
temporal blessings; that, in fact, they are ful¬ 
filled and are still fulfilling in the Christian 
church, and are not for Israel as a nation at all, 
not even when repentant! Is it strange that 
an exegesis like this, which insists upon apply¬ 
ing to the Jew all the curses upon Israel in a 
very literal sense, and yet upon appropriating 
to the Christian church all the blessings prom¬ 
ised Israel in a spiritual sense, and then telle 
the Jew that that is the doctrine of the Gospel, 
—is it strange that it has not commonly com 
vinced the average Jewish mind ? 

Or again, we point the Jew, with good rea¬ 
son, to the amazingly literal fulfilment of the 
many predictions of a suffering Messiah, who 
should be both priest and sacrifice, in the person 
and work of Jesus of Nazareth. But “Ah,” 


* Deut. xxviii. 13. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^29 

he rejoins, “ the same prophets also tell us that 
the Messiah is to reign, even on the throne 
of David, over the seed of Jacob. Where is 
the fulfilment of all that in jour Jesus ? ” 
At once he is told with all assurance that 
while all about the sufferings of Messiah must 
be taken literally, and in fact has been so ful¬ 
filled, yet, on the contrary, all about his reign¬ 
ing over Israel, is to be taken only in a spiritual 
sense ; that the kingdom is a spiritual one only, 
in the hearts of believers ; that the throne of 
David, on which Messiah was to rule, is the 
throne of God the Father, to which Jesus was 
exalted; that the house of Jacob, over which he 
was to rule, is the church which he has found¬ 
ed; in a word, that all about the suffering must 
be taken in a literal sense, but all about the 
reigning in a spiritual and figurative sense! Is 
it strange again that such a method of inter¬ 
pretation does not convince the Jew ? Why, he 
may well ask, have we not as good a right to 
explain away the literality of the sufferings, and 
insist on the literality of the reigning, as you 
Christians have, to explain away the literality of 
the reigning and insist on that of the suffering? 

But if, on the contrary, when the Jew asks 
about the blessings promised to his nation, 
and the predicted reign of the Messiah, we 
can admit, in accordance with the truth of 
9 



130 


THE JEWS; OR , 


Scripture, that as the curses, so the blessings, a* 
the sufferings, so the reigning of the Messiah 
shall be literal also, we have him at a great ad¬ 
vantage. Instead of being guilty ourselves, in 
interpreting the Scriptures, of exactly the same 
inconsistency, reversed, that he is, we are now 
consistent, and can insist, with reason, that the 
orthodox Jew, who stands so firm in his faith 
as to the literal fulfilment of the predictions of 
the glory of Messiah’s reign, and of the glory 
of his nation in that reign, shall not stop there, 
but also, according to those same principles, 
admit that the predictions of a suffering Mes¬ 
siah, yet to be recognized in penitence by Israel 
which pierced him, must be taken in a literal 
manner also. Then, and then only, are we logi¬ 
cally conducted to that very argument which the 
apostle Peter used when he exhorted the Jews, 
“ Repent, and turn again, that your sins may 
be blotted out, that so there may come seasons 
of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, 
and that He may send the Christ who hath 
been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom the 
heavens must receive until the times of the 
restoration of all things, whereof God spake 
by the mouth of His holy prophets which have 
been since the world began.” * 


* Acts iii. 19-21, Revised Version. 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^31 

And the force of these observations is abun* 
dantly borne out by experience. The Revs. An¬ 
drew A. Bonar and Robert Murray McCheyne, 
sent many years ago by the Assembly of the Free 
Church of Scotland on a mission of inquiry as 
to the spiritual condition of the Jews in Syria, 
Palestine and Eastern Europe, in the narrative 
of their observations and experiences afterward 
published, enumerating the qualifications which 
they judged necessary for him who would labor 
successfully among the Oriental Jews, used 
these words : “ A missionary (to the Jews) ought 
to be well grounded in prophecy, and he should 
be one who fully and thoroughly adopts the 
principles of literal interpretation, both in order 
to give him hope and perseverance, and in order 
to fit him for reasoning with Jews.” * To the 
same effect, a recent writer refers to the present 
Bishop of Ripon, England, as authority for the 
statement that there are at present among the 
clergy of the Church of England no less than 
three hundred presbyters and four bishops who 
are converted Jews, every one of whom was 
brought to the reception of the truth under the 
influence of Christian teaching according to the 


* Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews: 
Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, pt, 
193. 




132 


THE JEWS; OR, 


literal interpretation of tlie prophecies.* In the 
light of such facts, it plainly becomes a very 
serious matter that we see to it that we do not, 
by our own misinterpreting of Scriptures, be¬ 
come the unwitting occasion of still further 
confirming the Jew in his misinterpretations, 
and his almost inveterate prejudice against the 
Gospel. 

But the great practical consequence of our 
belief one way or the other, regarding the literal 
fulfilment of these promises to Israel, will per¬ 
haps most of all be evident, when we remember 
that the prophets everywhere connect with their 
fulfilment very closely, a glorious revelation of 
Israel’s Messiah in judgment. If we will be 
logical and consistent, then, as already sug¬ 
gested, as we interpret the predictions of the 
restoration, so shall we interpret those of the 
coming and kingdom of Messiah, which so often 
go with them. If we explain away the restora¬ 
tion as merely spiritual and figurative of some¬ 
thing else, then plainly we are logically bound to 
treat the predictions of the coming of Messiah 
in like manner—as, alas ! so many have done-^- 
and make that coming of Messiah a symbol of 
something else, which, whatever it be, is not an 

* In The Theocratic Kingdom of our Lord Jesus , the 
Christ. By Rev. G. N, II, Peters, New York : Funk 
& YVagnails, 1883 



PREDICTION.AND FULFILMENT. 333 

appearing of the Lord upon the Mount of 
Olives. On the other hand, if we are consist¬ 
ent, if we admit that the restoration of Is¬ 
rael to their land, is to be literal and na¬ 
tional, then the appearing of Israel’s King, 
which is again and again represented as accom¬ 
panying that restoration, must after the same 
analogy, be also literal, personal and visible. 
Whatever be the truth, then, on this subject, it 
should be plain enough that in no case can it 
be a matter of no practical consequence, as so 
many insist, what a man may believe as to this 
predicted restoration of the Jews. So far from 
this, our belief upon this point will be almost 
sure to settle for us many other momentous 
questions of Scripture interpretation, and de¬ 
termine all our anticipations as to the future 
course of human history. 

But it has come to pass in our day that God 
has been giving, if we mistake not, new con¬ 
firmations, most impressive and suggestive, and, 
as it seems to us, well-nigh irresistible, of that in¬ 
terpretation of His Word for which we have 
argued. In this respect the history of the Jews 
for the last hundred years reads us a lesson 
which, little as it has been noted by the most 
of Christians, cannot but awaken very deeply 
stirring thoughts among all those who believe 
that God, the God of the prophets, the God of 


13 1 


THE JEWS. 


Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, still lives and works, 
despite the unbelief of men, in human history, 
and hath by no means cast off His people “ which 
He foreknew.” The history of the Jews for the 
past hundred years has been such as to afford 
what some, at least, find themselves compelled 
to recognize as almost conclusive evidence of a 
literal fulfilment of the ancient promises to 
Israel already begun. What reason in fact 
there may-be for such a conviction, the reader 
will be able to judge, when we review the nat¬ 
ure and extent of the historical facts in ques¬ 
tion. To that examination we devote the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. 


THEORIES AND FACTS. 

“ And He spake to them a parable; Behold the fig 
tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye 
see and know of your own selves that summer is now 
nigh at hand.”—Luke xxi. 29, 30. 

The ultimate test of every theory is fact. 
The ultimate test of every theory of prophetic 
interpretation is, in the nature of the case, the 
fact of fulfilment. Thus, also, is it with the 
question whether or not the promises made 
to Israel in the prophets, of their future deliver¬ 
ance from their subjection to the Gentiles, and 
their reinstatement in more than their pristine 
glory, in their own land, are to be taken in their 
verbal and literal sense; this, also, must be 
brought sooner or later to this same test. The 
question, therefore, is of great interest and prac¬ 
tical consequence, whether or not we are yet in 
a position to apply to the theory of the literal 
interpretation of these promises, at least in some 
tentative manner, this crucial and decisive test. 

(135) 


136 


THE JEWS; OR , 


To the examination of this question, we devote 
the present chapter. 

Let it be noted, first of all, that both the in¬ 
timations of Scripture, and the analogy of past 
fulfilments of prophecy, make it highly prob¬ 
able that the restoration of Israel, at whatever 
time and in whatever manner it take place, will 
be a gradual process. The promised restoration 
from Babylon occupied nearly twenty years; 
the prediction of the subjugation of the whole 
nation to Gentile power, was fulfilled, not all 
at once, but in a long series of events, covering 
about a hundred and eighty years. The various 
events predicted in connexion with the future 
restoration of the Jews, are so numerous, and 
of so complicated a character, that it is made 
the more probable that the restoration also, if 
it is indeed to take place, may follow this 
analogy, and, like the subjugation of the nation, 
occupy a very considerable length of time. 

Thus, since the reinstatement of Israel in 
their land, is only one of the many events fore¬ 
told in connexion with their restoration, and 
that, too, apparently almost the last in order of 
fulfilment, it becomes very possible that,—if 
the literal interpretation should be correct,— 
then, some time antecedent to such re-estab¬ 
lishment of the nation in the land, we might 
see so clear and evident beginning fulfilment 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


137 

of other predicted events connected with 
the great restoration, as practically to settle 
the question of the literal interpretation of 
the whole group of restoration prophecies. 
Such a series of events, all looking and tending 
toward the literal restoration of the Jews, when 
fairly and unmistakably initiated, would plainly 
make it as good as certain that, like the predic¬ 
tions of the curse that was to fall on Israel, and 
those of their final conversion, so all the re¬ 
maining predictions of the Scriptures touching 
the reinstatement of the nation in the Holy 
Land in power and glory, and all the moment¬ 
ous events predicted f o accompany and follow 
that restoration, were to receive a no less literal 
fulfilment, against the day that the “ times of 
the Gentiles ” should have fully run their 
course. 

And so it becomes a question, not of mere 
vain curiosity, but of exceeding great impor¬ 
tance in its bearing both on our interpretation of 
the Scripture, and on our anticipations for the 
future of the world and the church, whether we 
are as yet able to apply to the interpretation of 
any of these Jewish restoration prophecies, this 
crucial test of fulfilment. The inquiry, be it 
carefully observed, is not one which involves 
any “ speculation ” as to the future; it has 
simply to do with a matter of historic fact. 




138 


THE JEWS; OR , 


“ Speculation,” by the very nature of the ques¬ 
tion proposed, is excluded. We have only to 
ask,—“ Have any signs and beginnings yet ap¬ 
peared, of a literal fulfilment of the ancient 
promises to Israel, such as, if the literal inter¬ 
pretation of those promises be correct, we have 
sooner or later to expect? Are there any signs 
of such a deliverance of the Jews from their op¬ 
pressors, and of the possible approach of such a 
return of the nation to their land, as the pro¬ 
phets—in words at least—everywhere predict, 
will take place in the latter day ? What are the 
facts of the recent history of Israel as bearing 
on this point ? ” 

The answer which history gives to this ques¬ 
tion, is clear as the sunlight. That answer is, 
without doubt, affirmative. It is the indisput¬ 
able fact that for now more than a hundred years 
the Jews have been steadily rising out of that 
depth of subjection and abasement in which they 
had lain for centuries; and that concomitant 
with this, have appeared among both Jews and 
Gentiles, many other exceptional phenomena 
predicted by the prophets, as to accompany or 
usher in Israel’s final restoration. The facts 
which support this assertion are most impres¬ 
sive when we look at the past, and full of very 
solemn omen as to the swiftly approaching 
future. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^39 

1. Of these facts, the first to be mentioned is 
the civil emancipation of the Jews, which has 
been one of the remarkable events of the his¬ 
tory of our age. The servile and debased con¬ 
dition under which the Jews existed, almost 
everywhere and always, from the beginning of 
the present Roman dispersion, we have already 
sufficiently set forth. The prophetic word, 
“ oppressed and spoiled evermore,” graphically 
represents their general history, until quite re¬ 
cent times. But a wonderful change has 
passed, and is still passing, on the condition 
of the “ scattered nation.” The Lord had said 
concerning Israel, that u in the latter days ” He 
would u break the yoke of the Gentiles from 
off his neck, and burst his bonds.” * It is a 
fact which cannot be denied that for the past 
hundred and thirty years the world has been 
witnessing a most literal fulfilment of these 
words. The past century, in particular, has 
seen a deliverance of the Jews from Gentile op¬ 
pression, which, although not yet complete, is 
without a precedent since the beginning of our 
era, and as wonderfully corresponds to the letter 
of prophecy, so far as it has yet advanced, as 
did the fulfilment of the predictions touching 
the dispersion. 


* Jer. xxx. 8. 






140 


THE JEWS; OR , 


The first act in the modern emancipation of 
the Jews was the enfranchisement of the Jews 
in England in 1753. It is true that the act at 
that time did not long remain in force, for the 
pressure of public opinion in England com¬ 
pelled Parliament, in the next year, to repeal 
the law of Jewish naturalization. We note tho 
fact, however, none the less, as it proved to be 
the first formal indication of a change in public 
opinion regarding the Jews, which, as we shall 
see, was soon to secure their emancipation from 
their bondage to the Gentiles, through the 
largest part of Christendom. But this initia¬ 
tion of the work of Jewish emancipation in 
England, was not all, nor, in its bearing on 
the status of the Jews in Christendom, was 
it the most significant event of that decade. 

Simultaneously with this movement in En¬ 
gland, appeared two men on the continent of 
Europe—the one a Jew of Germany, the other 
a Gentile (a Frenchman)—who were destined 
in the providence of God to do more than any 
other two individuals in preparing the way both 
of Jewish deliverance and of judgment on the 
oppressing Gentiles. These men were Moses 
Mendelssohn and Yoltaire. It was in 1755 
that Mendelssohn published the first of those 
writings which speedily secured for him recog¬ 
nition as among the foremost of the literary 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


141 

men of his time. About the same time Vol¬ 
taire, followed by Rousseau and the Encyclo¬ 
pedists, began to publish those writings which 
had so much to do in bringing about, a genera¬ 
tion later, the great French Revolution, in which 
awful convulsion the chains fell from the limbs 
of Israel, wherever the victorious arms of France 
appeared, and Jews began once more to be ac¬ 
counted men. 

Mendelssohn prepared the way for the great 
change that was so soon to pass on Israel, both 
by his influence on his own people, and by the 
effect of his life and work upon the sentiments 
and prejudices of the Gentile peoples of Eu¬ 
rope. Till his day, the Jews, in a proud isola¬ 
tion, had held themselves in a great measure 
aloof from the thought, and even from the lan¬ 
guage of their merciless oppressors. Many of 
the most eminent rabbis in Central Europe 
could not even speak the vernacular German 
of the people in the midst of whom they lived, 
and those who could speak it, for the most part 
used a barbarous Ilebrew-German patois, which 
everywhere exposed them, not without reason, 
to ridicule and contempt. It was Mendelssohn, 
first of note among the German Jews, who vent¬ 
ured to enter the profane precincts of Gentile 
literature. While none the less familiar with 
his native Hebrew, he became a master of the 














142 


THE JEWS; OR, 


classic German, and so, by his writings, brought 
the German Jews, for the first time, into com 
tact with the Gentile life and thought, of which 
the German language was the channel. The re¬ 
sult was the development, among the younger 
Jews, of an interest hitherto unknown, in that 
German literature in which their fellow-Israelite 
had achieved such success. Thus, after the iso¬ 
lation of centuries, they began to feel the full 
force of the influence of German thought and 
culture, and so w’ere gradually brought into a 
position to exert in turn that mighty influence 
on the Gentiles, which was long ago predicted 
by their prophets for the latter day, and the 
remarkable beginnings of which, as we shall 
see in the sequel, have begun to be so mar¬ 
vellously felt in our own time. 

Besides this, again, Mendelssohn, by his 
notes upon and translation of the Penta¬ 
teuch, as also by his constant protest against 
the authority of the synagogue to interfere 
with the right of individual opinion in relig¬ 
ious matters, initiated a great movement 
against the old rabbinical Judaism which had 
for so long a time stood as an impassable bar¬ 
rier between the Jews and the Gentiles. Thus, 
quite without intention of his own, he became 
the immediate author of that whole rationalistic 
tendency which has come to have in our day so 


I 

PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT . ^43 

great prevalence and power among the Jews, 
especially of the so-called reformed synagogue. 

As Mendelssohn did so much to bring his 
people, in various ways, nearer in sympathy to 
the Gentiles, so, on the other hand, he did 
scarcely less to enlist Gentile sympathy for the 
Jew. His rare intellectual endowments, to¬ 
gether with the singular attractiveness of his 
personal character, did very much, among the 
influential circles of Europe, to diminish that 
undiscriminating prejudice of ages, which could 
believe no good thing of a Jew. How much 
he influenced Gentile thought and action, we can 
appreciate when we recall his intimate relations 
with such men as Lessing, Goethe, Chancellor 
Dohm, and Mirabeau. And the active influ¬ 
ence of Mendelssohn dates from the same de¬ 
cade which saw the initial act of Jewish eman¬ 
cipation in England. 

In the same decade, and almost in the same 
year, began also the public work of Yoltaire and 
his fellows. Yoltaire fiercely hated the Jews, 
and yet no one did more to prepare the way for 
their emancipation. He did this, first, in that, 
by his merciless ridicule of Christianity, he 
weakened among the masses the power of 
those religious motives which had had so much 
to do in keeping alive the burning hatred of 
the Jews, as the crucifiers of the Lord, and so 






144 


THE JEWS; OR , 


incited men to bloodiest persecution. Then 
again, it is plain that the doctrine of the abso¬ 
lute equality of men, without regard to race or 
creed, and the consequent doctrine of the equa 
lights of all men, so sedulously propagated by 
Voltaire, Rousseau and others, involved, as its 
inevitable practical issue, the emancipation of 
the Jews from all exclusive burdens and odious 
discriminations. Thus, from that decade, dated 
another great movement, leading surely, though 
then unseen by man, to the deliverance of the 
Jews from the oppressions of the Gentiles. 

So clearly and indubitably does the middle 
of the last century mark a turning-point in this 
respect in the history of the Jews, that the 
eminent Jewish historian, Prof. Gratz, in his 
great work on “The History of the Jews,” 
dates the beginning of the fourth and last of 
the periods into which he divides Jewish his¬ 
tory, from 1750 a.d., and introduces that part 
of his work with the following words,—words 
which, in the light of the present argument, 
are very suggestive: 

“Can a nation be born in a day? or can a nation be 
born again? .... Yet in one nation a new birth ap¬ 
pears;—a resurrection out of a state of death and appar¬ 
ent corruption;—and that in a race which is long past 
the vigor of youth, whose history numbers thousands 
of years. Such a miracle deserves the closest attention 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^45 

of every man who does not overlook all wonderful phe¬ 
nomena. Mendelssohn had said at the beginning of 
this period, ‘ My nation is kept at such a distance from 
all culture, that one might well doubt the possibility of 
any improvement.’ And yet she arose with such mar¬ 
vellous quickness out of her abasement, as if she had 
heard a prophet calling unto her, * Arise ! arise! Shake 
off the dust! Loose the bonds of thy chains, O captive 
(laughter of Zion ! ”* * 

The effect of these diverse influences soon 
became manifest in a practical way. The pol¬ 
icy which had for centuries been pursued by 
Christian nations toward the Jews, was first re¬ 
versed by the United States of America, who 
embodied in their fundamental law, from the 
very birth of the nation, the principle that all 
men, without regard to creed or race, Gentile 
and Jew, should be held equal in right and 
privilege before the law. In Europe the new 
and decisive movement began in 1783, when 
Joseph II. of Austria sounded the signal of the 
approaching revolution, in an edict of toleration, 
liberating the Jews throughout his dominions 
from the oppressions of centuries. By this de¬ 
cree the odious “ body-tax ” was abolished, and 
most of the vexatious restrictions npon them,— 
such as, for example, forbade the Jew to wear a 
beard, or to leave his house on the festival days 

* Geochichte der Juden } xi, Bd., S. 1, 2, 

zo 



146 


THE JEWS; OR , 


of the church, or to frequent places of pleasur¬ 
able resort, etc.,—were removed. All the schools 
and universities of the Austrian empire were 
thrown open to the Jews. The spirit of revo¬ 
lution was now abroad. The air was full of 
voices presaging impending change. In 1784, 
Louis XYI. of France also abolished the body- 
tax, which reduced the Jew, as far as possible, 
to the level of a beast. In 1787, Frederic Wil¬ 
liam of Prussia repealed many of the oppres¬ 
sive laws against the Jews, which Frederic the 
Great had enacted. The Academy of Metz 
convened an assembly for the express purpose 
of considering the best means of improving the 
■ condition of the Jews, and the Abbe Gregoire, 
—under the inspiration, it is said, of the great 
Mendelssohn,—published his famous prize essay 
on the same subject. In 1788, Louis XVI. ap¬ 
pointed a royal commission, with Malesherbes 
at the head, “ to remodel on principles of jus¬ 
tice, all laws concerning the Jews.” 

So things were going on, when the French 
Revolution, with all its unprecedented terrors, 
burst upon bewildered Europe. The Lord had 
said by the prophets, that when the hour of Is¬ 
rael’s deliverance should come, He would make 
them that had oppressed her, “ drunk with tbeir 
own blood,” * and that He would then take the 

* Iff. xlix, 24-39. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

cup of trembling out of the hand of Israel, and 
“ put it into the hand of them that had afflicted 
her.” * And so, as every one knows, it came 
to pass at that time. The great time-piece 
of the dispensation struck the predestined hour, 
the great revolution began, and Europe was 
straightway tilled with tire and blood. Throne 
after throne went down in flame and judgment; 
and, as the thrones of the Gentiles fell, every¬ 
where fell with them the chains of ages from 
the limbs of Israel. 

In the almost universal massacres in France, 
the Jews alone, it is said, commonly escaped 
harm, and even in “the reign of terror” passed 
unhurt, like Israel of old in the days of Egypt’s 
plagues. The great Napoleon arose, the imper¬ 
sonation of the new order of things, and at his 
side, amid the smoke of battle, appeared the 
forms of Jewish marshals leading his armies 
against the oppressors of their nation.f It was 
a solemn reminder of the words of the pro¬ 
phets, and might almost seem an omen of a more 
awful day yet to come upon the earth, when it 


* Is. li. 22, 23. 

f According to Lord Beaconsfield, a number of the 
marshals of Napoleon were Jews. He says, “ Several of 
the French marshals, and the most famous—Massena, 
for example—was a Hebrew; his real name was Manas- 
peh.”— Coninysby, ii. 203. 



148 


THE JEWS; OR , 


is said that the Lord shall make Israel His battle- 
axe, to break in pieces the nations.* The revo¬ 
lution had little more than begun, when the 
Jews of France sent in a petition to the National 
Assembly, asking that they might be admitted 
to the full rights and privileges of citizens of 
France, on the basis of those principles of 
“ liberty, equality, and fraternity,” which the 
revolution represented. The petition was 
granted, and in France the emancipation of 
the Jews was complete. As the revolution 
spread over Europe, with it went everywhere 
the proclamation of liberty to the Jew from the 
bondage of the centuries, and one country after 
another followed the example of France. So 
things went on until 1799, when Napoleon, 
then on his Syrian campaign, startled the world 
by a proclamation summoning the Asiatic Jews 
to rally round his standard in Palestine, and 
promising to give them the Holy Land, and 
to restore Jerusalem. Thousands, we are 
told, gathered about this would-be Cyrus, 
but with the failure of his campaign in Syria, 
this project fell through.j* “ The fulness of 
time” had not yet come. For all this, how 
ever, the work of Jewish emancipation still 


* Jer. li. 20. 

t See Gratz: Oeschichte der Juden , xi. Bd., S. 230. 






PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 449 

went steadily on. In 1805, Alexander I., of 
Russia, revoked the edict by which the Jews 
had been excluded from the dominions of the 
Czar, and they now returned in such numbers 
that it is supposed that at the present time 
about one-third of all the Jews in the world, are 
found in the Empire of Russia. In 1806, the 
Jews were made citizens in Italy and Westpha¬ 
lia, as they had been some years before in Hol¬ 
land and Belgium, and were formally recog¬ 
nized as a religious body by Napoleon, in his 
convocation of the great Sanhedrim. In 1809, 
Baden, in 1813, Prussia, and also Denmark, 
followed the other States of Europe, in giving 
civil liberty to their Jewish subjects. And 
finallv, as the last throes of this great earth- 
quake died away, the Congress of Vienna sig¬ 
nalized the introduction of the new state of 
things as regards the Jewish nation, in that all 
the contracting powers there formally pledged 
themselves to turn their attention to the im¬ 
provement of the condition of the Jews through¬ 
out Europe. Since that time, while there have 
been now T and then brief periods of reaction in va¬ 
rious countries where the Jews have been more 
or less fully emancipated, such as we have lately 
seen in Germany and elsewhere, yet the Jewish 
emancipation movement has only thereby for a 
brief season been checked, but never arrested. 


150 


THE JEWS; OR , 


In England, successive Acts of Parliament, in 
1830, 1833, and 1835 removed, one after an¬ 
other, restrictions under which the Jews had 
labored; but it was not until 1858, upon a tenth 
attempt, that their full equality was conceded, 
when they were at last made eligible to election 
to Parliament. In Russia, the work has made 
as yet but little progress. The ukase of 1835 
somewhat limited their oppressions, but lately, 
as every one knows, the anti-Jewish feeling has 
broken out in Russia, with a fierceness that re¬ 
minds one of the darkest days of the Middle 
Ages. What the possible final bearing, how¬ 
ever, of this state of things may be, on the broad 
question of Jewish restoration, will appear more 
clearly in a subsequent part of this historical 
review. The Mohammedan power, whether 
Saracen or Ottoman, which has now for 
almost 1,260 years held the Holy Land, has 
treated the Jews, on the whole, more justly than 
the so-called Christian powers of Europe. In 
1814, through the influence of the Jewish noble¬ 
men, Cremieux and Montefiore, seconded by the 
representations of the governments of England 
and France, a firman was secured from the Sul¬ 
tan of Turkey, pledging to the Jews protection 
from persecution throughout his dominions, in¬ 
cluding of course the Holy Land. In 1848, 
again the Gentile monarchies shook to their 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^51 

foundations. Again, and more than ever before, 
the emancipated Jews appeared in the fore¬ 
front of the revolution, leading and ruling, 
where for ages they had only been ruled. In 
France, appeared in the government, the Jews 
Fonld, Cremieux, and Goudchaux; in the pro¬ 
visional government of Venice, the Jew Pin- 
clierle was a leading member; in Berlin, Jacobi 
was leading the opposition ; in the Parliament 
of Frankfurt, the Jew Riesser was the vice- 
president ; in Austria, Fischhof appeared at the 
head of the government after the flight of the 
court, while Adjutant Freund, afterward and 
more widely known, under the Sultan, as Mah¬ 
mud Pasha, was leading the troops in the Hun¬ 
garian insurrection.* But the final judgment 
of guilty Christendom, which many thought 
then to be at hand, was again deferred; nor 
have we yet, to the present time, seen any gen¬ 
eral movement of a like destructive character. 
This warning judgment, however, marked an¬ 
other great advance in the deliverance of the 
down-trodden nation, and in the overthrow of 
their oppressors. The revolution of 1848 finished 

* For a somewhat fuller account of the position of 
the Jew T s at this time, see an article in the National 
Quarterly Review, for July, 1880, on “The Political 
Future of the Jews,” to which we * are indebted for 
some particulars. 



152 


THE JEWS; OR , 


up the work of the emancipation of the Jews in 
several instances where its full completion bad 
long lingered. Since then, the Jews in Prussia 
have had the same privileges as other citizens, 
and the last vestige of a distinction before law 
between Jew and Gentile, then passed away. 
When, in 1870, Bismarck finally consummated 
the unification of Germany,* the same position 
was secured to the Jews in the other States of 
the German Empire. In England, as already 
remarked, the finale lingered until 1858, when 
the last restriction which debarred Jews from 
the highest position in the Government was 
done away.f In 1867 Turkey gave the Jews, 
for the first time in centuries, the right to own, 
in common with other foreigners, real estate in 
the land of their fathers. In 1870, with the 
overthrow of the temporal power of the Pope, 
their humiliation in Italy ended. In 1878, the 
Congress of Berlin made the full emancipation 
of the Jews in Boumania, the condition of the 
promised autonomy. 

* In the treaty of Nov. 23d, 1870, between Bavaria 
and the Confederation of North Germany. 

f In that year the last prohibition was removed, but 
the action was perfected in 1860, by an additional pro¬ 
viso to the effect that when the parliamentary oath 
should be given to the Jew, the words, “ on the faith 
of Christian,” to which he naturally objected, should 
be omitted from the usual form. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


153 


Many other facts remain to be noticed here¬ 
after ; but, pausing here for a moment, is it not 
already quite plain that the question proposed 
in the beginning of this chapter, must be an¬ 
swered in the affirmative ? God had promised 
by the prophets that, as one part of the great 
restoration, He would, in the latter day, break 
the yoke of the Gentiles from off the neck of 
Israel, and burst their bonds. It cannot be 
denied that, for the past hundred years or more, 
the world has been witnessing a literal fulfil¬ 
ment of that ancient prediction. The change 
in the civil position of the Jews throughout the 
largest part of Christendom, has, indeed, been 
one of the most characteristic features of the 
history of this century. 

It is a fact, then, that God has undoubtedly 
begun to fulfil the predictions of the restora¬ 
tion of the chosen nation, in a manner as literal 
as that in which He had fulfilled all that He 
had threatened against them. It is true that the 
complete fulfilment of the promises to Israel, 
has by no means yet been reached. It is 
even conceivable, however improbable, that this 
emancipation movement should cease, or be re¬ 
versed, and the Jews everywhere be remanded 
to their former servile position. Yet are not 
the facts before us such as should make those 
unbelievers pause, who, with Prof. Kuenen and 


154 


THE JEWS; OR , 


others, in support of their “ historieo-critical 
theory of prophecy, whereby all evidence ol 
foreknowledge and inspiration is eliminated, 
refer so confidently to the alleged non-fultil- 
ment of these Jewish promises? Is not such an 
allegation at least a little premature ? 

And, again, are not these same facts of weight 
also against the theory of many believing theo¬ 
logians, who assure us that now, in the Christian 
dispensation, all the promises concerning the 
temporal restoration of the Jews, have ceased 
to apply to that nation, and can only he fulfilled 
in the Hew Testament church? For if, indeed, 
the promises to Israel of the breaking of the 
yoke of the Gentiles in the latter day, have 
actually begun to be fulfilled, not in the church, 
but in that nation, does it not thereby become 
as good as certain that all that still remains of 
those restoration prophecies, will also be fulfilled 
in the same national Israel, and in the same 
literal manner as the breaking of the yoke ? 

But we can test the theory before us still 
further. For the restoration of the latter day 
is predicted, not in a merely vague and general 
manner, but with a great fulness of detail as to 
the attendant circumstances. Are there any 
signs of a like literal fulfilment as regards 
these details also, or are they to be taken as 
mere rhetorical amplifications of the general 
promise of blessing? 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. I55 

2. In tlie prophecy of Ezekiel we have, in the 
vision of the valley of dry bones and its inter¬ 
pretation, a very fall account of the final restora¬ 
tion and conversion of Israel.* According to 
the representations of that vision, the restoration 
is to take place in successive and perfectly dis¬ 
tinct stages. Thus, the prophet saw that before 
the giving of life to the dry bones which 
symbolized the house of Israel, before even the 
clothing of them with flesh and sinews and 
skin, there was, first of all, “ a noise and a shak¬ 
ing, and bone came to bone, each bone to his 
fellow.” That is, he saw, in the first place, a 
preliminary organization, the necessary ante¬ 
cedent of all that followed. If this feature of the 
vision mean anything, it would seem that it can 
mean nothing else than this:—that a tendency 
to external organization in the scattered nation, 
was to be looked for, antecedent and preparatory 
to their actual reinstatement in their land, and 
their conversion to God by the power of the 
Spirit of life. Something of this kind, there¬ 
fore, according to the prophet, was apparently 
to be expected as one of the initial stages of the 
restoration process. 

In this, again, do we find fulfilment answer¬ 
ing to prediction, in the age in which we live. 


*Ezek. xxxvii. 7-14. 



156 


THE JEWS; OR , 


Ever since the early part of this century, has 
been manifest a steadily increasing tendency 
among the Jews to organize themselves for the 
purpose of cherishing and strengthening their 
national life. First of all, as has been men¬ 
tioned, came the summoning of the great San¬ 
hedrim by Napoleon, in 1806, which gave 
the Jews a common ecclesiastical organization 
throughout Europe, so far as the Empire ex¬ 
tended.* Of more lasting practical consequence 
has been the formation, in 1860, of the Alliance 
Israelite Universelle, an organization which has 
for its object the promotion and completion of 
the emancipation of the Jews in all lands, and 
their intellectual and moral elevation, as also the 
development of the Jewish population of the 
Holy Land. Within the last two years this tend¬ 
ency to organization for practical purposes has 
received a new impulse from the Jewish per¬ 
secutions in Russia. These have occasioned, 
especially in Russia, Roumania, and Austria, 
the formation of numerous organizations for 
the purpose of effectively promoting the emi¬ 
gration of the persecuted people from Russia 
and other countries to Palestine. We shall 
have occasion to recur to this matter in another 


* In its essential features the organization remains in 
France to the present time. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^57 

connexion, and need not therefore to enlarge 
upon it now. Enough has been mentioned to 
show that, even as the prophet Ezekiel long ago 
predicted, there has been and is even now—an 
tecedent to the actual reappearance of Israel as 
a nation in the land of promise—“ a noise and a 
shaking” among the dry bones of Israel, and 
bone is coming to bone, u each to his fellow.” 
This prediction as to the beginning of the final 
restoration is also being very literally fulfilled. 

3. But we can bring this theory of interpreta¬ 
tion to another test. For the prophets not only 
foretell the emancipation of the Jews from Gen¬ 
tile tyranny, but they also predict, with great 
fulness of detail, what shall be their condition 
when thus freed from the yoke. In the first 
place, it is intimated that at the time of their 
restoration they shall have become possessed of 
great wealthy and that even in the lands of their 
oppressors, and before their return to the land 
of their fathers. It is particularly mentioned 
that when the isles and the ships of Tarshish 
shall bring Israel back to their own land, they 
shall “ bring their silver and their gold with 
them.” * And this wealth shall be derived from 
the Gentiles that oppressed them : for it is writ¬ 
ten that they shall “eat the riches of the Gen • 


* Is. lx. 9. 



158 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tiles ”;* * * § and, again, that when their spoilers 
shall cease to spoil them, then they in turn shall 
spoil their spoilers, f A transfer of great wealth 
from the Gentiles to the Jews, is thus, in words 
at least, one of the predicted marks of the near 
approach of the great restoration. Is this to be 
understood literally, or are we to take it in a 
figurative sense, as only meaning that the wealth 
of the world shall, in the last days, pass over to 
the church, and be consecrated to the Lord’s 
service? Are there any facts in this age of 
Jewish emancipation, which bear upon the an¬ 
swer to this question ? 

Assuredly there is no lack of such facts.f 
Everywhere in Europe is noted the extraordi¬ 
nary tendency of capital to concentrate in Jew¬ 
ish hands. The position which has long been 
held by the firm of the Rothschilds, as one of 
the foremost banking houses of Europe, is well 
known to every intelligent person.g But the 


* Is. lxi. 6. f Is. xxxiii. 1. 

I Much in this and the following paragraphs touch¬ 
ing the present position of the Jews, will be found in 
an article by the writer on “ The Jewish Question in 

Europe,” in The Neio Englander , May, 1881, repub¬ 
lished in The British and Foreign Evangelical Review , 
October, 1881. 

§ “ During the ten years, 1854-1864, the Rothschilds 
furnished in loans, $200,000,000 to England, $50,000,- 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^59 

prominence of this noted Jewish house is by 
no means an exceptional and isolated fact. The 
petition of the “ anti-Semites ” in Germany, 
circulated in the autumn of 1880, makes the 
relation of the Jews to the finances of the 
country, one of its main arguments to show 
that restrictions should he placed upon them. 
This was one of the special complaints formally 
embodied in that petition:— u The fruits of 
Christian labor are harvested by the Jews. 
Capital is concentrated in Jewish hands.” 
There is abundant evidence to justify this 
statement, which, indeed, we do not find dis¬ 
puted by any one. 

As a natural result of this state of things, 
the Jews have become, more than ever before, 
the money-lenders of Europe, and—the ancient 
laws having been abolished which forbade them 
to hold land—are becoming, it is said, to an 
extent that is quite startling, the actual or vir¬ 
tual owners of the soil through a large part of 
Central and Eastern Europe. One of the Lib¬ 
eral papers of Germany is quoted by the New 

000 to Austria, $40,000,000 to Prussia, $180,000,000 to 
France, $50,000,000 to Russia, $12,000,000 to Brazil, in 
all, $482,000,000, besides many millions to smaller 
States.”—Rev. E. O. Bartlett, in the Christian Intelli¬ 
gencer , quoted in The Gospel in All Lands, Nov. 30th, 
1882, p. 256. 



160 


THE JEWS; OR , 


York Tribune as saying that “ the rapid rise 
of the Jewish nation to leadership is the great 
problem of the future for East Germany.” The 
writer justifies this opinion by the statement 
that “ all the lower forms of labor, in the work¬ 
shops, the fields, the ditches, and the swamps, 
fall to the lot of the German element, while 
the constantly increasing Jewish element ob¬ 
tains enormous possessions in capital and land, 
and raises itself to power and influence in every 
department of public life.” * To the same 
effect it was said in a debate in the German 
Reichstag on the famine of 1880, in Upper 
Silesia and Posen, that one of the causes of the 
extreme distress was the fact that the lands of 
these countries had so largely passed, by mort¬ 
gage foreclosure, out of the hands of the Ger¬ 
man population into those of the Jews, that the 
Christian population, stripped and impover¬ 
ished, were “ almost incapable of raising them¬ 
selves again.” f Another number of the Berlin 
paper which reports this, says that “ more than 
a sixth part of the Jews in Russia live by means 
of the liquor trade, as is admitted by the Jews 
themselves. The same is true of the Jews in 

* The New York Daily Tribune, Feb. 9th, 1880 : 
article, “The Anti-Jewish Movement in Germany.” 

t Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung, Berlin, den 13. Marz, 
1880 : above-cited article. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


161 


Roumania and all the Slavic lands.With 

the liquor trade usury goes hand in hand.” As 
the result, we are told, “ it is a fact which can 
be no longer denied that the population of the 
remote districts of Russia, Austria, Hungary 
and Roumania, are only the nominal possessors 
of the soil, and, for the most part, quite strictly, 
cultivate the land only for the Jews, to whom 
they have mortgaged their estates for their 
liquor debts.” * 

These general statements are corroborated 
by the official statistics of the States of Eastern 
and Central Europe. These clearly show an 
accumulation of capital in Jewish hands, which 
is quite out of proportion to the number of the 
Jews among the population. It were easy to 
multiply illustrations. In Russia, it is said, 
already in 1869, seventy-three per cent, of the 
immovable property of certain provinces in the 
west, where the Jews are the most numerous, 
had passed from the hands of the Russians into 
those of the Jews.f About one-fourth of the 

* Tb. den 10. Jan., 1880 : article, “ Der gegenwartige 
Stand der jfidischen Frage.” Of late, however, the 
Russian Government has taken special measures to 
meet tins evil, imposing a special tax upon Jews who 
may engage in the retail liquor trade. 

t The Century, April, 1882, p. 912 . article, “Rus¬ 
sian Jews and Gentiles.” 

11 



162 


THE JEWS; OR , 


railway system of Russia is owned by a Jew ; 
known as u the Russian railway king,” the State 
Councillor, M. Samuel Solomonowitz de Poli¬ 
akoff. Such is his eminence and influence, 
that—according to the St. Petersburg corre¬ 
spondent of The Jewish Chronicle —at a recent 
banquet at the University of St. Petersburg, 
held in the presence of the leading members of 
the Russian aristocracy, the health of this Jew¬ 
ish magnate was proposed by the Minister of 
Education, Privy Councillor Deljanoff, imme¬ 
diately after that of the Emperor and Empress. 
According to the Golos , this man, scarcely less re¬ 
markable for the munificence of his public bene¬ 
factions than for his wealth, is “ the founder of 
the first railway engineering school, as also the 
first and only school of mines in Russia. The 
establishment of these two institutions, as w r ell 
of the Alexander College, impelled the Minis¬ 
ter of Education thus to place him on a level 
with the greatest benefactors of the Empire.” * 
In Prussia, even so long ago as 1861, accord¬ 
ing to the official returns, out of 71,000 Jews 
capable of work, 38,000 were engaged in com¬ 
merce, while, on the other hand, among the 
day-laborers, there was only one Jew in 586. 
In 1871, out of 642 bankers in Prussia, all but 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Nov. 10th, 1882, p. 10. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


163 


92, i. e ., about six-sevenths of the whole num¬ 
ber, were Jews.* And yet the Jews formed 
but two per cent, of the population! In the 
same year, in Berlin—where the Jews were 
five per cent, of the population—out of every 
hundred Protestants, 39 were returned as “ em¬ 
ployers, 5 ’ but out of every hundred Jews, 71 
and 55 per cent, of the total Jewish population 
■were reported as engaged in mercantile life, as 
against 12 per cent, of the Protestant Germans. 

Similar are the facts as regards the Austrian 
Empire. One of the religious papers of Ber¬ 
lin asserts that “the Bourse of Vienna actually 
lies wholly in Jewish hands.” f In Lower 
Austria, out of 59,122 merchants, 30,012 are 
returned in the last census as Jews. In Gali¬ 
cia, the amount of the encumbrance of real 
estate by mortgage has for several years past 
increased at the rate of about eight millions of 
florins per annum, and one-third of the total 
amount has already, w 7 e are told, passed by 
foreclosure into the hands of the Jews. The 
number of sheriff’s sales of peasants’ land hold¬ 
ings had risen from 164 in 1867, to 3,164 in 
1879; and it was almost exclusively the Jews 


* Neue Evang. Kirch en-Zc itun g, den 13. Marz, 1880: 
above-cited article. 

t n>. 



164 


THE JEWS; OR , 


who brought about these foreclosures and secured 
thereby the property. Of the private mortgages 
registered in the province of Bukowina in 1877, 
82 per cent.—according to the official returns— 
were owned by the Jews. In 1881, it was said 
that already one-half of the real estate of that 
province, in town and country, had come into 
the possession of the Jews, and the Director of 
the Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Thaddeus Pilat, 
expressed the opinion that the remainder would 
very shortly go the same way. 

Facts of the same kind are reported from 
Hungary. In that country, in 1878, there were 
16,000 sheriff’s sales of property, of which by 
far the greater part passed over to the Jews.* 
Indeed, two or three years ago, The (. London ) 
Spectator stated that in Hungary the Jews had 
obtained possession of so many of the old 
estates u as to make a change in the Constitution 
a necessity.” In the neighboring country of 
Boumania, according to the same authority, it 
was claimed in the Parliament that the true 
difficulty in the way of allowing the Jews the 
equal rights which were stipulated in the Treaty 
of Berlin, was “ the certainty entertained by 

*Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung, den 18. Dec., 1880: arti¬ 
cle, “Umschau unter den Juden Oesterreich-Ungarn ”; 
also, den 25. Mai, 1881: article, “Die anti-jiidische 
Bewegung.” 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

the Roumanians and Servians that if the Jews 
were thus given an equal chance, they would 
gradually oust the peasantry till they possessed 
the whole land.” 

Similar accounts are given of the state of 
things in Algiers. According to Le Telegraphe, 
“ Constantina, Algiers and Oran, belong almost 
completely to the Jews. The whole trade of 
Algiers is in their hands; and, in consequence 
of high and usurious rates of interest, a large 
proportion of the natives are fallen into the 
power of the Jews.” “Here,” adds the writer, 
“ appears a dark point, full of danger for the 
future.”* Such facts as these, everywhere 
appearing, certainly give good reason for the 
remark of The {London) Spectator that “ the 
Jews display a talent for accumulation with 
which Christians cannot compete, and which 
tend to make of them an ascendant caste.” 

To revert now to our argument:—a transfer 
of great wealth from the Gentiles to the Jews, 
is one of the circumstances which is predicted 
as to usher in the great restoration. We see 
ithe predicted emancipation from the Gentile 
yoke begun, and with it, everywhere, the rapid 


* As quoted in the Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung, den 
22. Oct., 1881: article, “ Verschurfung der anti-judische 
Bewegung, II.” 



166 


THE JEWS; OR, 


increase in Jewish wealth at Gentile expense, 
which the words of the prophets, if taken in 
their literal sense, so long ago foretold for the 
restoration period. This prediction also is thus 
apparently beginning to be ful tided ; and, like 
all else before, in the most literal manner possi¬ 
ble. 

4. But we may add another test. It was also 
predicted by the ancient prophets that when 
the Jews should in the last days be delivered 
from their enemies, they should be raised to 
gi'eat power and influence in the lands where 
they should be scattered. Tims, e. g ., we read 
in the book of Zephaniah, concerning the last 
great restoration: “At that time I will undo 
all that afflict thee; and I will get (my people) 
praise and fame,”—not, be it observed, in Pales¬ 
tine, but—“ in every land where they have been 
put to shame ; for I will make you a name and 
a praise among all people of the earth, when I 
turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith 
the Lord.”* Let it be observed that this is by 
no means a necessary consequence of the emanci¬ 
pation of a people. The negroes, for example, 
have been emancipated in this same century, 
but there is no sign of anything like this be¬ 
coming true of them. How is it with the Jews % 


* Zepk. iii, 10 , 20 . 






PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


167 

Is this predicted mark of the beginning of the 
great restoration also to be discerned ? Here is 
another test of the literal interpretation. 

The question has already in part been an¬ 
swered, but much more remains to be said. 
Especially to be remarked is the position which 
the Jews have taken of late in the matter of 
education. It is not yet a century since Joseph 
II. of Austria first threw open the universities 
of that empire to the Jews, equally with the 
Gentiles. Most of the other States of Europe, 
sooner or later, followed this imperial example, 
so that now in nearly all European countries, as 
in America, Jews have the same opportunities 
of education with Christians. Everywhere they 
have entered eagerly into the intellectual con¬ 
test, and already, as compared with Christians, 
are found in a much larger proportion of their 
total number, among the educated and educat¬ 
ing classes. According to a statement made in 
a public address in Berlin, by Herr Stocker, one 
of the court preachers to the Emperor of Ger¬ 
many, in the gymnasia of that city, where the 
Jews are but five per cent, of the population, 
they are thirty per cent, of the students.* Ac- 


* Beilage zu Nu. 230 dev Neuen Preussischen Ereuz - 
Zeitung , Berlin, den 12. Oct., 1879: article, “Notliwehi 
gegen das moderne Judenthum.” 



168 


THE JEWS; OR , 


cording to The Presbyterian, of Philadelphia, 
at a recent date, out of 8,609 students in the 
University of Berlin, 1,302 were Jews. Tn 
Austria the state of things is similar. For ex¬ 
ample, in the High Schools of Vienna, lately, of 
2,488 students, 1,039 were registered as Jews. 
In Lower Austria, according to a recent census, 
1,024 advocates at law return themselves as 
Jews, out of a total of 2,140. Statistics given 
in the Statistisches Jahr-Bueh der Stadt Ber¬ 
lin for 1879, reveal the yet more significant 
fact that the higher the grade of the educational 
institution, the greater the proportion of Jews 
among the students; and the higher the class 
in any given institution, the larger, in like man¬ 
ner, the proportion of Jewish students. 

The facts, in a word, are such as to warrant 
the statement of Prof. Treitschke, of the Uni¬ 
versity of Berlin, that “ while in the whole Ger- 
man Empire the proportion of Jews is only one 
in seventy-five, yet in all the higher institutions 
of learning the proportion of Jews is one in 
ten so that, as he remarks, u in only a few 
years more, every tenth educated man in Ger¬ 
many will be a Jew.”* To the same effect 
Prof. Von Schulte, in The Contemporary Re¬ 
view. , argues from the educational statistics of 


* New York Daily Tiihune, in article above cited. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


169 


the German Empire, that “it needs no prophet 
to foretell that the offices of State, the legal and 
medical professions, trade and industry, will 
pass in ever increasing proportion in Germany 
into the hands of the Jews”; and, he adds, 
“ the educational returns show the same state of 
things in Austria also.” * 

The position of the Jews in Austro-Hungary 
is illustrated in a etching manner, in the Re¬ 
port of the Hungarian Ministry of Worship and 
Instruction, concerning the educational state of 
that kingdom during the official year, 1878-79. 
According to the correspondent of The Catholic 
Presbyterian, it appears from ihis Report that 
“though the entire Jewish population of Hun¬ 
gary is only 550,000, out of a total c 1 12,576,480, 

* The Contemporary Review, August, ±879: article, 
“ The Religious Condition of Germany Apropos of 
these facts may be noted an incident in tne aebate in the 
German Parliament on the anti-Jewish petition of 1880. 
On that occasion the above-mentioned Herr Stacker is 
reported to have said : “ At the post-mortem examina¬ 
tion of a body lately near Berlin, there were present the 
district physician, the lawyer, the surgeon, and a fourth 
official, all Jewsl and none but the corpse was a Ger¬ 
man ! Behold,” he cried, amid uproarious excite¬ 
ment, “ a picture of the present! ” “ This epigram,” 

says The ( London ) Spectator , commenting on the occur¬ 
rence, “ in some places where every prominent person 
seems to be more or less a Jew, becomes literally true M 



TIIE JEWS; OR , 


170 

yet it furnishes a predominant proportion of 

pupils to all the different classes of schools. 

There are some of the gymnasia in Hungary 
where three-fourths of all the pupils attending 
them are Israelites; and in others there are cer¬ 
tain classes which are under the necessity of 
observing the Jewish feast-days, because they 
are almost wholly made up of Jews. In the 
gymnasia throughout the kingdom they furnish 
eighteen per cent, of the students; in the Real* 
schulen, thirty-six per cent., and in the Faculty 
of law, twenty-five per cent, of the students.’ 5 * 
Yet the proportion of Jews in the whole popu¬ 
lation is only four per cent. 

As a natural consequence of this remarkable 
state of things, it has come to pass that in every 
land where the Jews exist in any number, and 
have an equal chance of competition with 
Christians, men of Jewish blood, and in most 
cases of Jewish faith, are found holding posi¬ 
tions of the highest influence as scholars and 
educators of the people, to an extent which is 
out of all proportion to their number. A re¬ 
markable instance is afforded even in Islam. In 
Cairo, Egypt, is the largest theological college 
in the world; it has 800 professors and 10,000 


* The Catholic Presbyterian, October, 1880, pp. 317, 
818. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ]_Y1 

students. Those students come from all parts 
of the Mohammedan world, from West Africa 
to China; they take their course of study, and 
go forth, devoted missionaries of the faise pro¬ 
phet, into the depths of Africa, and in the wilds 
of Central Asia. It is not easy to overestimate 
the influence of this great Arabic University. 
It is, perhaps, the most effective religious prop¬ 
aganda in the world. But at the head of this 
ancient institution of learning stands a member 
of the Jewish race. It is a Jewish pervert to 
Islam, by name Abbasi, who holds authority 
over all those 300 professors and 10,000 stu¬ 
dents, and so occupies the most influential 
position of theological instruction in the Mo¬ 
hammedan world. 

If we turn to Europe, we find that a remark¬ 
able proportion of the men who are in the fore¬ 
most rank as scholars and as educators, are of 
Jewish blood. On the side of the Christian 
scholarship, we may mention, as examples, such 
names as the late Prof. Meander, and of Prof. 
Delitzsch, of the University of Leipzig, and in the 
anti-Christian Biblical criticism of the day, the 
names of Zunz, Kayser, Maybaum, and Kalisch. 
Among linguists may be noted the distinguished 
Sanskrit scholars, the late Profs. Goldstiicker 
and Benfey; the eminent Hebraists, Prof. Luz- 
zatto, and Dr. Julius Fuerst, well known to He- 


172 


THE JEWS; OR, 


brew students by bis Hebrew Dictionary and 
Concordance; the Greek critic and scholar, 
Jacob Bernays; M. Frank, lately deceased, who 
succeeded M. Henan, as professor of the Semitic 
languages in the College of France, and was 
pronounced when living the ablest philologist 
in that country; the late M. Munk, Member of 
the Academy of Belles Lettres and Inscriptions; 
Jules Oppert, Prof, of Assyrian Archaeology 
and Philology in the same institution. To the 
names of these eminent Jews of this century 
might be added those of many others no less dis¬ 
tinguished in their several departments of study, 
as, e. g., David Ricardo, the eminent political 
economist; the mathematician, Sylvester, and 
the astronomers, Beer and Stern ; the historians, 
Jost, Geiger, IJerzfeld, and Gratz, whose great 
work on the history of the Jews stands proba¬ 
bly unequalled on that subject; among musical 
composers, a great number, as Mendelssohn, 
Halevy, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Jules Benedict, 
Strakosch, Grisi, and all the Strauss family; 
among students of physical science, Bloch and 
Hirschfeld; all of whom, and many others 
whose names would at once be recognized as of 
the highest authority in their several specialties, 
are of the Jewish race. In the German Em¬ 
pire, although the Jews are not two per cent, 
of the population, and have had full equal rights 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


173 

with the Germans for only about a generation, 
yet, according to The (New York) Nation , they 
already hold seventy professors’ chairs in the 
universities. And all agree that the tide of 
Jewish influence, in education and literature, is 
still rising. 

The predicted increase of Jewish influence 
in connexion with their emancipation and res¬ 
toration is further illustrated in the extensive 
control of the press which the Jews have lately 
acquired. This is much insisted on, and with 
good reason greatly lamented, by many of the 
most eminent Christian men in Europe. The 
fact is to be observed in every country where 
the Jews exist in any number. In Spain, since 
the terrible banishment under Ferdinand and 
Isabella, the Jews have never in any numbers 
cared to live, and there are not, it is said, four 
thousand Jews in the whole country. Yet even 
in Spain it was—recently, at least—a Jew, a 
member of the Cortes, who was the editor of 
the Madrid Correspondence , the most influ¬ 
ential paper probably in that country. In Italy, 
the Liberal press is said to be greatly indebted 
for its vigor and brilliancy to Jewish pens. 
With the recollections of the Mortara outrage 
fresh in their minds, and the memories of the 
merciless cruelties of the Inquisition, the Jews, 
in Italy and elsew r here, are the most unsparing 


174 


THE JEWS; OR , 


enemies of papal pretensions, and by their in 
fluence, thus exerted through the press, are 
said to have powerfully contributed to that 
change in Italy which culminated in the over¬ 
throw of the temporal power of the pope. As 
regards Germany, according to Prof. Christ- 
lieb, “ the Liberal press .... is for the most 
part in Germany in the hands of the Reform 
Jews.” * As respects Berlin, this statement 
receives illustration from another of Herr Marr, 
in Die Deutsche Wacht , that out of twenty- 
three Liberal and Progressive papers of the 
Berlin daily press, there are only two which are 
not, in one way or another, under Jewish con¬ 
trol. The JSfeue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung tells 
us that on a recent “ journalists^ day ” in Dres¬ 
den, in a gathering of the representatives of 
the press, twenty-nine out of forty-three were 
Jews. In Austria, apparently, the same phe¬ 
nomenon appears; for in Lower Austria, ac¬ 
cording to the last census, out of three hundred 
and seventy who returned themselves as authors, 
two hundred and twenty-live, or nearly two- 
thirds, were Jews. 

In a no less surprising degree are the Jews 
gaining “praise and fame” in connexion with 
the politics of the lands where they are scat- 


* Protestant Foreign Missions , New York, 1880, p. 48. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^75 

tered. This is the more remarkable that they 
are still a despised people, and dependent for 
their political position in most lands upon the 
suffrages of the Gentiles, who dislike, and often 
detest their race: and yet, in Europe, their 
rapidly increasing influence in politics is mat¬ 
ter of universal attention and comment. Illus¬ 
trations are numerous. In Italy, they number 
scarcely 40,000, yet they lately held eight seats 
in the Chamber of Deputies, including the 
vice-presidency of the Chambers. In England, 
they are only about one in 800 of the popula¬ 
tion, yet, recently, they held nine out of 658 
seats in the House of Commons, while, as every 
one knows, a member of their race, if not of 
their faith, was at the same time Prime Minis¬ 
ter. So also a Jew, Sir George Jessel, holds 
a seat in the first rank of English Judges as 
Master of the Polls—a man who has been char¬ 
acterized by a leading London paper as the 
ablest lawyer in equity that has sat in that 
court in the present generation, and “ the most 
distinguished of the living graduates of the 
University of London.” * 

* £ir George Jessel has died, March 21st, as this is 
passing through the press, and the event has occasioned 
the expression of many similar estimates of his c?vr- 
acter. The Pall Mall Gazette calls him “one of the 
greatest judges of our own or perhaps any time.” 



176 


THE JEWS; OR , 


In Germany also, tlie Jews, of late years 
have been represented in the walks of political 
life by a proportion remarkably large for their 
numbers. The names of Liebknecht and Op- 
penheim, of the Reichstag, may be mentioned, as 
also Lasker, who lias been the recognized leader 
of the radical opposition to Prince Bismarck 
in that body. Of their influence of late years 
in the internal affairs of Germany, we shall 
have more to say shortly. Turning to France, 
where, less than one hundred years ago, every 
Jew had to pay on crossing a bridge, the same 
tax as a donkey, we find in recent times, a simi¬ 
lar large proportion of Jews in many of the 
highest positions in the government of the coun¬ 
try. As instances may be mentioned the 
names of Fould, Minister of Finance under 
Napoleon III.; Cremieux, late Minister of Jus¬ 
tice ; Jules Simon, and Camille See, the able 
and successful champion of female education 
in the Chamber of Deputies; the Commander- 
in-chief of the French army in the recent oper¬ 
ations in Tunis, not to speak of many others. 
On a recent occasion, no less than 21 Jews 
were decorated with the order of the Legion of 
Honor. Yet the number of Jews in France is 
only about 60,000 in a population of about 
37,000,000. 

Nor is this upward tendency of the Jewish 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 177 

nation a phenomenon to be observed in Europe 
only. Similar tendencies begin to be remarked 
also in the United States, even although the 
Jews here are not over one per cent, of the 
population. The Central Committee of the 
Alliance Israelite Universelle is authority for 
the statement that in the United States of 
America, u in recent years, three senators, seven 
assemblymen, nine judges, two governors of 
States, five mayors, two collectors of the port, 
and two brigadier-generals, have been of the 
Jewish race.” In the person of Judah P. Ben¬ 
jamin, they were also represented in the Cabi¬ 
net of the Confederate States, during their 
short political existence. Such facts as these 
thus far reviewed are certainly such as to give 
more reason than one might at first suppose 
possible, for the opinion which M. de Lavaleye, 
the eminent publicist of Belgium, has expressed 
in these words :— u The rapid rise of the Jewish 
element is a fact which may be observed all over 
Europe. If this upward movement continues, 
the Israelites, a century hence, will be the mas¬ 
ters of Europe.”* 

Pausing here now to look at these facts in 
the light of the Scriptures, does not all this 
look very like a literal fulfilment of God’s pro- 


* Quoted in The Century , April, 1882. 
12 



178 


THE JEWS; OR, 


plietic Word, taking place before our very eyes \ 
It was said, 2,500 years ago, by the prophet 
Zephaniah, that when God, for the last time, 
should turn back the captivity of Israel, He 
would then get them praise and fame , in 
every land where they had been put to shame. 
That the “ captivity ” of Israel is being turned 
back—in other words, that “Jewish emancipa¬ 
tion ” is one of the notable facts of our age, is 
clear; that the Jews are gaining “praise and 
fame,” in an unprecedented manner, in all the 
lands where their “ captivity ” is turned,' is 
equally certain. The fact is so conspicuous as 
to be exciting universal attention and comment, 
not merely among a few prophetic specialists, 
but among the most eminent and thoughtful 
men of our time, believers and unbelievers 
alike. How can we then escape admitting that 
the events of our age in this respect also, go to 
justify the literal interpretation of the ancient 
promises to Israel ? 

5. But there is yet another circumstance pre¬ 
dicted in connexion with the final restoration 
of Israel. It was also foretold that at that time 
they should greatly increase in number. “A 
little one shall become a thousand, and a small 
one a strong nation.” * Israel is to “ blossom, 


* Is. lx. 22. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^79 

and bud, and fill the face of the world with 
fruit.” * “ The days come, saith the Lord, that 

I will sow the house of Israel and the house of 
Judah with the seed of man and with the seed 
of beast; and it shall come to pass that like as 
I have watched over them to destroy and to 
afilict, so will I watch over them to build and 
to plant, saith the Lord.”f And again, 66 1 
will increase them with men like a flock. 5 ^ No 
doubt these and like predictions will receive 
their complete fulfilment only when Israel 
shall be re-established in their own land in pen¬ 
itence and faith. Still as the restoration is re¬ 
presented as a gradual process, it is of conse¬ 
quence to our present argument to inquire 
whether there are as yet any signs of a literal 
fulfilment of this prediction of a great increase 
in the latter days, in the numbers of the Jew¬ 
ish nation. Should this appear, it is plain that 
it will furnish yet another confirmation of the 
literal theory of interpretation. 

The answer to this question is not hard to 
give. The facts, again, are clear and undis¬ 
puted. For centuries the Jews in almost all 
lands were compelled to live under the most 
unwholesome sanitary conditions; their nat¬ 
ural increase was also, in some instances, lim- 


* Is. xxvii. 6. t Jer. xxxi. 27. { Ezek. xxxvi. 37. 



180 


THE JEWS; OR, 


ited by law; while, moreover, they were re. 
peatedly put to death in large numbers. It 
was the natural consequence of such conditions 
that during this period their normal growth 
should be more than counteracted. The word 
of the Lord was for eighteen hundred years 
strikingly fulfilled, that He would u watch over 
them to destroy and to afflict.” As the result, 
so far as we can ascertain the facts, it seems 
clear that the numbers of the Jews rather di¬ 
minished than increased. Basnage, 175 years 
ago, estimated their number at that time to be 
about 3,000,000.* It is certain that it is much 
more now, and that for the past fifty or sixty 
years especially, they have been increasing very 
rapidly. The lowest estimate of the present 
number of the nation which we have found, is 
that which is given in the Report for 1878 of the 
Berlin Society for the Promotion of Christian¬ 
ity among the Jews,f which makes it between 
six and seven millions. According to the high 
authority, however, of Herzog’s Beal-EncyJdo - 
jpddie , the whole number of the present Jewish 
dispersion is to be reckoned at not less thaii 
about twelve millions. 

Whatever may be the exact figures, it is the 

* Basnage, History of the Jews , translated by Thos, 
Taylor, London, 1708: book vii., chap, xxxiii., sec. 15. 

t Quoted in the iV. T. Evangelist. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 

undoubted fact that, according to vital statis¬ 
tics, the Jews are everywhere increasing in a 
more rapid ratio than the Gentile populations 
in the midst of which they live. This, appears 
to he chiefly due, first, to a larger proportion of 
birth, and, in the second place, to an exception¬ 
ally low average of mortality. The facts re¬ 
ceive striking illustration in statistics given by 
the writer of the article in Herzog’s Encyldo- 
jpadie on “The Post-Biblical History of the 
Jews.” In his personal acquaintance he had 
found the Jewish births to exceed those among 
the surrounding Gentiles in the proportion of 
5.5 to 3.8. As illustrating the superior longev¬ 
ity of the Jews, he gives in the same article 
such facts as the following :—According to the 
Civilstands-Begister of Frankfort, for the pe¬ 
riod between the years 1846 and 1858, while 
the fourth part of all children born among the 
Christian population had passed away before 
the age of 6 years and 11 months, the fourth 
part of all Jews born were not gone until 28 
years and 3 months ; half of all Christians born 
had died before reaching 36 years and 6 
months, while half of the Jews survived the 
age of 53; of Christians born, three-fourths 
had passed away before reaching the age of 60 ; 
while, of the Jews, one-fourth were still living 
at 71! Again, according to the church and 


182 


THE JEWS ; OR , 


synagogue records of the Prussian monarchy 
for the eighteen years from 1823 to 1841, the 
average of deaths annually among the Gen¬ 
tile population was 1 in every 34, but 
among the Jews only 1 in 46. Twenty per 
cent, of the Jews reached JO years, as against 
only twelve per cent, of the Christians.* 

This subject is further illustrated by such 
facts as the following, which are given in a pa¬ 
per “On the Numbers of the Jews in All 
Ages,” published in the Transactions of the So¬ 
ciety of Biblical Archaeology , from which we 
quote:—f 

“Between 1816 and 1867, a period of fifty years, the 
general population of Prussia increased 91 per cent., 
while the Jewish population was augmented by 112 
per cent. Elsewhere the facts are still more remark¬ 
able. In Austrian Galicia in fifty years (1820-70) the 
ordinary population increased 25 per cent, and the 
Jewish population 150 per cent. The same fact has 
been observed at Bucharest and other places. Pressel 

and Neufchatel give similar statistics.The great 

increase of late years in the numbers of the Jews was 
remarked recently by the president of the Anthropolog¬ 
ical Society, and Holland, Switzerland, Bavaria, and 
Hungary were mentioned as countries in which it "was 
manifest.The soberest statistician may venture 


* Herzog’s Real-EncyTdopddie , vii. Bd., article, “ Israel, 
naclibiblische Gescliichte desselben,” S. 244, ff. 
f Yol. iv., part 2, 1876. 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^§3 

to predict a large increase in the opening future of this 
ancient and wonderful people.” 

It is a fact, therefore, that whereas the 
prophets predict a large increase in the num¬ 
bers of the Jews in connexion with their final 
restoration, this prediction also, simultaneously 
with their emancipation, is receiving a fulfil¬ 
ment no less literal than all the others noted. 
In this particular, again, the literal interpreta¬ 
tion of the temporal promises to Israel is sus¬ 
tained by the facts of fulfilment, and the charge 
of failure made by unbelief is contradicted by 
these facts. 

6. But we have yet another test which we can 
apply to the question before us. For it stands 
written in the prophets against the Gentile 
power which was so long to oppress Israel, 
“ When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be 
spoiled * and, again, that when God shall 
take 44 the cup of trembling ” out of the hand 
of Israel, He will then put it into the hand of 
them that had afflicted lier.f 

To the same effect we read that in the day 
when the Lord shall save Jacob from the land 
of his captivity, He “ will make a full end of 
all the nations” whither He had scattered 
him.J In agreement with these words the 


* Is. xxxiii. 1. f Is. li. 22, 23. J Jer. xxx. 10, 11. 



184 


THE JEWS; OR 


Lord Jesus also predicted that “ immediately ” 
upon the closing of Israel’s long “ tribulation,” 
there should be u upon the earth distress of na¬ 
tions, with perplexity, men’s hearts failing 
them for fear.” * It has, therefore, been clearly 
foretold that the time of the ending of Israel’s 
tribulation should he marked by accompanying 
judgments upon the Gentile nations among 
whom they should at that time be scattered. 
This evidently raises another test-question bear¬ 
ing on the theories before us. The period be¬ 
ginning with the latter half of the last century 
has undeniably been marked by a gradual 
emancipation of the Jews from the power of 
those that oppressed them, as also by other pre¬ 
dicted circumstances already mentioned. Has 
it also been signalized, in any special manner, 
by simultaneous judgments upon the Gentile 
peoples , among whom the Jews are principally 
found ? 

The facts which form the answer to this 
question are so recent and so familiar as to 
need no more than the briefest statement. It 
is undeniable that we are here again confronted 
by a literal fulfilment of the ancient predic¬ 
tions. The last hundred years has not been 
more distinctly marked by the emancipation of 


* Matt. xxiv. 29 ; Luke xxi. 25, 26. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. Ig5 

the Jews than also by the simultaneous disin¬ 
tegration and revolutionary overthrow of very 
many of the old monarchies and republics that 
have succeeded to the territory of the Roman 
empire, in which region the Jews are chiefly 
scattered. Moreover, it is the remarkable fact 
that both the emancipation of the Jews and the 
revolutionary movements which from time to 
time since 1789 have shaken Europe, have been 
alike due to the operation of a belief in one and 
the same principle, namely, the essential equal¬ 
ity, and by consequence, the equal rights of all 
men. Hence, naturally, just those crises in 
which the emancipation of the Jews has made 
the most progress, have been just those in 
which also, as at the close of the last century 
and the middle of the present, the Gentile 
powers have suffered the most sorely. 

The prophets declared that the special form 
which the judgment foretold would finally take, 
—toward which, therefore, it might be expected 
to tend from the first,—was the final overthrow 
of Gentile dominion in the earth, an overthrow 
of u all the kingdoms of the Gentiles.” It stands 
expressly predicted in an address to Israel, “ I 
will make a full end of all the nations whither I 
have scattered thee.” * In the fullest sense, in- 


* Jer. xlvi. 28. 


/ 



186 


THE JEWS; OR, 


deed, these words have not jet been fulfilled; 
but who needs to be told that the distinctive tend¬ 
ency of all those revolutionary movements in 
Christendom, which began with the great cata¬ 
clysm of the first French revolution, has been 
ever more and more clearly toward the total 
overthrow of government as such, and the sub¬ 
stitution of the will of an irresponsible popu¬ 
lace for the supreme law of God, as the ulti¬ 
mate source of authority and fountain of law. 
The utter subversion of the existing order of 
things in Church and State has been the avowed 
aim of the Internationalists, the Nihilists of 
Russia, and the Anarchists of France, while 
other less formidable and radical organizations 
are working, if less openly and consciously, yet 
none the less certainly toward the same end. 

That we see such national distresses and perils 
of so unprecedented character, appearing on 
every hand simultaneously with the beginning 
emancipation and elevation of the Jewish na¬ 
tion, is a fact which, in the light of the predic¬ 
tions of God’s word, appears full of the most 
solemn significance. To put the case in a few 
words:—more than 1,800 years ago, the Lord 
Jesus said that when the Jewish tribulation 
should end and the “ times of the Gentiles ” be 
fulfilled,—“ immediately after the tribulation of 
those days,”—there would be “ on earth distress 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ] gy 

of nations, with perplexity, men’s hearts failing 
them for fear and for looking after those things 
which are coming on the earth.” And now, in 
our day, we see Israel’s long tribulation ending; 
and as for the predicted distress of nations en- 
suent,—w T hat a comment on the words of Christ 
concerning the state of things which should fol¬ 
low upon the ending of Israel’s subjection to 
the Gentiles, is afforded, for example, by this 
description of our times, wdiich was given in an 
editorial of The (London) Spectator a year or 
two ago : “ The nations feel insecure, as if they 
had no defence; the working populations are 
distressed till their irritability shakes all govern¬ 
ments ; there is deep unrest everywhere, a sense 
as of over-fatigue; a popular looking forward, 
not for a millennium, but for some colossal catas¬ 
trophe in which all prosperity shall be sub¬ 
merged ; a tension such as half makes statesmen 
wish that the cataclysm would come and be 
over. And we see ahead no prospect of ameli¬ 
oration, no gleam of hope in the sky.” These 
words were written a little while ago, but the 
state of things in Christendom has certainly not 
sensibly improved since then. 

Thus another predicted mark of the closing 
scenes of the age-long Jewish tribulation has 
appeared in the history of our time. “ On earth 
distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts 


188 


THE JEWS; OR , 


failing them for fear”;—that is what the Lord 
foretold would be the state of things when Isra¬ 
el’s tribulation should end; and does it not 
appear as if, with Israel’s long abasement termi¬ 
nating, these words of Christ were also begin¬ 
ning to be fulfilled before our eyes, like all the 
other words of prophecy, in a very literal man¬ 
ner % 

7. But the prophetic Scriptures furnish us 
wfith yet another test which we can apply to the 
theory before us. For it stands therein pre¬ 
dicted, not only that coincident with the resto¬ 
ration of Jewish power, should come a disinte¬ 
gration, and at last a final overthrow of Gentile 
power, but also that Israel should be, in some 
way or other, the instrument in the hand of 
God to bring this about. Thus Micah prophe¬ 
sied, “ The remnant of Jacob shall be among 
the Gentiles in the midst of many people, as a 
lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young 
lion among the flocks of sheep • who, if he go 
through, both treadeth down, and teareth in 
pieces, and none can deliver. Thine hand shall 
be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine 
enemies shall be cut off.” * So, also, Zechariah 
said that a day would come in which God would 
make the governors of Judah “ like a hearth of 


* Mic. v. 8, 9. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. }g9 

fire among the wood , and like a torch of fire in 
a sheaf”; and they should “ devour all the 
people round about, on the right hand and on 
the left.” * Here, again, arises a simple ques¬ 
tion of historical fact, namely:—Has the Jewish 
nation, as such, had any special connexion with 
the troubles which for some time past have been 
threatening the Gentile world ? 

In answering this question, let it be noted, 
first, that the two most marked and undeniable 
characteristics of the period since the emancipa¬ 
tion of the Jews began, have been the follow¬ 
ing. In the first place, there has been a decay 
of faith in a personal God and His revealed 
Word, due very largely, by common admission, 
to the growing influence of a rationalistic and 
destructive criticism based upon a pantheistic 
philosophy. In the second place, we see, as the 
indubitable effect of this, a general tendency, 
still increasing, to deny the authority of God, 
not only in matters of religion, but by logical 
sequence, also in the spheres of civil and politi¬ 
cal life. In a word, a protean rationalism , un¬ 
settling the foundations of faith; and—as the 
ill-begotten child of this unbelief in God—a 
God-denying democracy , often under the vari¬ 
ous names of socialism, communism, nihilism, 


* Zech. xii. 6. 



190 


THE JEWS; OR , 


always noisily demanding universal license 
under the name of “ liberty and equal rights,”—• 
these have been the two disintegrating forces 
which have been working in Christendom for 
a hundred years past as never before in history. 

That the conception of the world which these 
all express, means, if carried out in human 
action, the complete subversion of the present 
civil and religious order of Christendom, this 
no one will deny; and this is distinctly avowed 
by not a few of the radical leaders everywhere, 
as their direct and fixed intention. The clear 
recognition of the greatness and the imminence 
of the danger in this direction, fills many of the 
wisest men in Christendom with gravest appre¬ 
hensions, as they look toward the future. But 
who have set in motion these currents of thought 
and action which seem to be sweeping toward 
so fatal issues ? What people have been, whether 
consciously and intentionally or not, among the 
chief organizing and controlling agents in this 
mad propaganda of revolution? The answer, 
however many have failed to note it, is not far 
to seek, nor, in the light of the prophetic word, 
does it seem hard to perceive its significance. 

As regards th q pantheistic rationalism , which 
confessedly lies at the root of the trouble,* every 

* How constantly pantheism tends to atheism, every 
student of history knows, Pantheistic Brahminism oi 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


191 


scholar knows that the founder of this modern 
pantheism was the Jew, Baruch Spinoza. As 
to the relation of this man to modern anti- 
Christian thought, competent judges are at one. 
For example, Dean Milman truly says: 

“ The influence of Spinoza’s writings has been exten¬ 
sive beyond that of most men on the thoughts and 
opinions of modern Europe. The politico-theological 
treatise of Baruch Spinoza is the undoubted parent of 
what is called the rationalistic system, and from his 
arid and coldly logical pantheism has grown up the 
more exuberant pantheism of modern Germany. It 
may be truly said that to Judaism mankind owes the 
doctrine of the deily, the distinct and active personality 
of God; from a Jew came forth the conception most 
antagonistic to the conception of the Godhead revealed 
by Moses and accepted as its primary truth by Christi¬ 
anity.This obscure Jew took in his toils and claims 

as his followers some of the leading intellects of modern 

Europe.In Germany most of the philosophers, 

Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, paid him the 
homage either of transplanting his system into their 
own, or of transmuting it into another form.”f 

It is not easy, indeed, to overestimate the ex- 


old developed the atheistic doctrine of the Buddha; 
and so again in modern Europe we have seen the pan¬ 
theistic philosophy of Hegel developed by many of his 
disciples into the boldest pessimistic atheism. See 
Schwarz. Geschichte der neuesten Tlieologie , S. 22, ff. 

f History of the Jews, New York, 1SG5 : vol. iii., pp. 
881, 384, 300. 




192 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tent to which the baneful influence of the phi¬ 
losophy of Spinoza has made itself felt in mod- 
ern thought and life, even in many cases where 
those who are thus influenced, know not the real 
origin of those conceptions and principles which 
are determining their thinking and acting.* 
Thus Mr. Farrar remarks, in his Critical His¬ 
tory of Free Thought, respecting the criticism 
which is found in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theo - 
logico-Politicus, that however “ immature ” it 
was, yet on this subject “ the book marks an 
epoch, a new era in the critical and philosophi¬ 
cal investigation of religion. Spinoza’s ideas 
are, as it were, the head-waters from which flows 
the current which afterward parted into sepa¬ 
rate streams.” f And again : u The central 

principle of Spinoza’s philosophy, the pantheis¬ 
tic disbelief of miraculous interposition which 
has subsequently entered into so many systems, 
was first clearly applied to theology by him. 
Wherever the disbelief in the supernatural has 
arisen from a priori considerations, and express¬ 
ed itself .... with assertions that miracles are 
impossible, and nature an unchanging whole, this 
disbelief, whether insinuating itself into the de- 

* See A Critical History of Free Thought , etc. (The 
Bampton Lectures for 1802), by Adam Storey Farrar, 
M.A.: New York, I860, pp. 109-114. 

t lb., p. 112. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^93 

fence of Christianity, or marking the attack on 
it, has been a reproduction of Spinoza.” * 

Illustrations of these statements are numer¬ 
ous. Every one knows the epoch-making in¬ 
fluence of the famous work of Strauss, Das 
Leben Jem , with its mythical hypothesis of the 
formation of the gospels. No less familiar is 
the wide-spread influence of that school of de¬ 
structive criticism of the New Testament, 
which, a little after the publication of the above 
work of Strauss, was founded by Prof. F. C. 
Baur, of Tubingen ;—a criticism, which having 
assumed the impossibility of the miraculous, 
has endeavored then to construct a theory of 
the origin of the gospels which shall, in some 
way or other, account for the phenomena they 
present, on the supposition that nothing mirac¬ 
ulous ever occurred. Just at present the Chris¬ 
tian vrorld is greatly agitated by conclusions 
announced by a similar school of Old Testa¬ 
ment criticism, marked by a like utter disbelief 
of the miraculous, and the same resort to a 
misuse of the principles of literary criticism, 
in order to disprove the.genuineness and credi¬ 
bility of those Old Testament books which are 
so inconveniently full of the supernatural. 

Although, the conclusions of this class of 


* A Critical History of Free Thought , p. 114. 
13 



194 


THE JEWS; OR , 


critics have only of late begun to excite any 
considerable interest with the general English- 
reading public, yet the origin of this school of 
Old Testament criticism dates from about 
the same time as that of the publication of 
the work of Strauss.* The immense and per¬ 
haps unprecedented influence which this de¬ 
structive criticism of the Old and New Tes¬ 
taments has had and still is exercising, in un¬ 
settling the faith of multitudes in the divine 
authority of Christianity, has become so sadly 
familiar to all, as barely to require a mention. 
But it is the significant fact that this “new 
criticism” of the Scriptures began its course in 
Germany, when the Hegelian philosophy was 
the ruling fashion in that country. And not 
only is this true, but Yatke, the chief leader of 
the attack on the Old Testament, since taken 
up and continued by so many others, was a dis¬ 
ciple of Hegel, as were also, on the New Testa¬ 
ment side, Strauss and Baur of Tubingen, not 
to speak of others of less note in the conflict. 
In several instances the philosophic conclusion 
was even announced before the critic began his 
work.f But this philosophy of Hegel, which 
furnishes the postulates upon which the do- 
Btructive critics go to work, is, according to the 


• About I 860 , 


t Bee Preface. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


195 


common consent of historians and critics, the 
lineal descendant of the philosophy of Spinoza.* 
And so, in full accord with Mr. Farrar’s re¬ 
marks above cited, we must affirm that the 
ultimate origin of the modern destructive criti¬ 
cism of the Scriptures is to he found, as regards 
the principles to which it owes its birth and 
character, in the philosophy of the Jew, 
Spinoza. 

Investigation has also shown us that, not un¬ 
naturally, various prevalent erroneous theories 
as to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, are 
to be traced up to the same source. On this 
subject, the Rev. Mr. Lee, in his work on The 
Inspiration of the Scriptures , remarks that 
u to Spinoza may be ultimately traced the 
source of every hue and shade of modern scep¬ 
ticism on the inspiration of the Scriptures. By 
bringing the opinions of his nation under the 
notice of subsequent writers, he has introduced 
into Christian theology the speculations of the 
mediaeval Jews, and more particularly the phi¬ 
losophy of Maimonides, the master-spirit of his 
race during the Christian era.”f All this he 

* For a brief and clear statement of the relations of 
the systems of Schelling and Hegel to that of Spinoza, 
see, e. g., Prof. Shedd: History of Christian Doctrine , 
New York, 1863, vol. i., p. 227. 

t See The Inspiration qf the Scriptures, by W. Lee, 



196 


THE JEWS; OR , 


illustrates and proves in detail. The connexion 
between the theology of Schleiermacher, and 
the philosophy of Spinoza, is well known, and 
we need only advert to it here as another illus¬ 
tration of the relation of Spinoza to various 
forms of modern error.* * 

It is thus probably not too much to say that 
no one man has had more of influence in deter¬ 
mining and giving to the unbelief of this 
century its specific form, than this same Jew, 
Spinoza. 

Yet the fact that this man, who has not un¬ 
fitly been called the father of our modern ra¬ 
tionalism, was a Jew, might quite conceivably 
be a mere accident, and of no significance what¬ 
ever. But so to regard the case would be a 


Trinity College, Dublin, Appendix C, for a full pre¬ 
sentation of this whole subject, with authorities for the 
statement cited in the text. 

* Prof. Griitz, characterizes the theology of Sclrleier- 
maeher in the following caustic terms : “Schleierma- 
cher’s religious system is an unnatural mixture of 
Spinozistic pantheism, Moravianism, and somewhat 
from Schlegel’s Lucinde.It has an amusing ap¬ 

pearance that Schleiermacher should raise the Jew, 
Spinoza, reckoned a heretic by the whole world, almost 
quite as high, and set him nearly on one level with his 
Jesus 1 Also in Spinoza the Universal was reflected ! 
He also was full of religion and of the Holy Ghost l ” 
Geachichte der Juden ) xi. Bd., S. 181, 184. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


great mistake. For Spinoza did not stand alone, 
as an anomalous and irregular product ot Juda¬ 
ism. Although, because he went too far for 
the strictly orthodox among his Jewish breth¬ 
ren, he was excommunicated by them, yet he 
derived, as has been fully demonstrated, many 
of the most essential and characteristic doc¬ 
trines of his system from Jewish sources.* We 
cannot do better than sum up the truth of the 
matter in the following words of Prof. Flint, 
of St. Andrew’s University, Scotland : 

“Spinoza has been proved beyond doubt to have 
derived far more from authors of his own race than 
had been supposed. He will never be understood by 
any one who forgets that he was by birth and training 
a Jew; that the first and most powerful influences 
which acted upon him were Jewish ; that he knew t'ie 
Hebrew Scriptures from his youth ; that he wa- early 
initiated into the Talmud ; that he had become conver¬ 
sant, even be'ore he left school, with the writings of 
the famous Jewish scholars and thinkers who lived in 
France, Spain, North Africa, etc., during the middle 

ages.Had the Jews themselves not come to the 

rescue, we should probably still have been ignorant of 
the closeness and comprehensiveness of the relation be¬ 
tween Spinoza and the earlier Jewish thinkers. But 
this they have done, and the works of Frank and 


* Full illustration of these facts is given by Prof.Griitz: 
OescMchte der Juden , x. Bd., S. 181, ff. See also Ueber- 
<veg : History of Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 57, 58. 




198 


THE JEWS; OR , 


Munk, Joel andMises, Bernavs, Benemozegh, and Jara- 
chewsky, etc., have to a great extent laid hare those 
roots of Spinoza which were fixed in Jewish soil. 
They have amply proved that, to be conceived of 
rightly, he must be viewed as combining and connect¬ 
ing two great developments of thought, an eastern and 
a western, a Jewish and a Gentile; that nothing was 
more natural than that a Jew, situated as he was, should 
have been the founder of rationalism; that he founded 
it mainly by combining, developing, and organizing the 
ideas and principles of along line of Jewi-li Biblical 
students ; and that he derived many of the elements 
and doctrines of his speculative system from Jewish 
sources.”* 

Thus we are warranted in saying much more 
than that the author of our modern pantheistic 
rationalism was a Jew, which might indeed 
have been a merely accidental circumstance of 
no real significance. Rather, in the light of 
the latest historical investigations, we must af¬ 
firm that not merely to a Jew, but to Christ - 
rejecting Judaism , must we ascribe in large 
part the genesis of our soul-destroying modern 
rationalism ! It is the direct outcome of a lon^ 
stream of mediaeval Jewish speculation, which, 
chiefly through Maimonides and Spinoza, 
passed at last into the Christian Church, there 

*Anti-theistic Theories , by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., 
Edinburgh and London, 1879: Appendix, Note xxxviii., 
pp. 548, 549. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. ^99 

to infect Christian theology with the deadly 
poison of Jewish unbelief. It is that same 
people who once crucified their incarnate God 
and Messiah, who have done so much to origi¬ 
nate this last deadliest assault upon the faith, 
and, let us add, by necessary consequence,— 
however unintended,—the morals also of the 
Christian nations. 

The second chief danger that is threatening 
Christendom, for which the former has been 
steadily preparing the way, is found, as remarked 
above, in the great socialistic and commu¬ 
nistic movements , which, under various names 
and forms, disturb in an ominous manner the 
tranquillity of modern society. And it is the 
significant fact that these also have been initia- 
ted and are to-day being led to a great extent 
by Jews. Among the most prominent and 
dangerous of these socialistic organizations has 
been the International Workingmen’s Associ- 
ation. Although it was not organized until 1863, 
it was really a product of the revolution of 
1848, when the Jews, Carl Marx and Lieb- 
knecht, issued a circular calling upon the work¬ 
ing classes to unite in an organized crusade 
against the existing order of society as respects 
the relations of capital and labor. These and 
others worked and published faithfully for a 
decade or so, and appear again prominent in 


200 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the final formation of the International Associ¬ 
ation in 1864, Marx himself drawing up its 
constitution and laws.* 

So it was a Jew, Again, Ferdinand Lasalle, in 
philosophy a Hegelian, who founded in May, 
1863, the German Working Man’s Union, out 
of which, with marvellous rapidity, has devel¬ 
oped the German Socialist party. Of this Jew, 
Lasalle, President Woolsey remarks that “he 
held an almost sovereign position at.the head 
of his party,” and quotes Heinrich Heine—him¬ 
self also a Jew—as saying that Lasalle was “a 
man of the greatest acuteness that had ever 
come under his notice.” f Lasalle has been 
dead some years, but his work remains; and, 
moreover, those who have succeeded him as 
leaders of the German Socialists, and have held 
that position till now—Marx, Bebel, and Lieb- 

*Marx died in London, March 15tli, 1883. A public 
meeting was held in New York to honor the memory 
of the dead Jewish Socialist, at which,—according to 
The New York Tribune —“ Cooper Union was crowded 
to its utmost capacity ” and “ the red flag of the Com¬ 
mune was everywhere.” 

f Communism and Socialism ,, by Theodore D. Wool¬ 
sey : pp. 172, 173, et seq. See also an article in The 
Contemporary Review, “ Ferdinand Lasalle and German 
Socialism,” in which the writer remarks—“ German so¬ 
cialism, it is not too much to say, is the creation of 
Ferdinand Lasalle.” 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 201 

knecht—are all of them Jews; while the text¬ 
books of the Socialist schools are Lasalle’s Sys¬ 
tem of Acquired Rights and Marx’s Critique 
of Capital , of which latter the fundamental 
principle is “ Capital is robbery.” 

In the Hungarian revolution of 1848 so 
many Jews took an active part, that after the 
insurrection was suppressed a special exaction 
was levied upon the Jews of Hungary by the 
Austrian Government. In Russia similar rev¬ 
olutionary tendencies appear among the Jewish 
population. According to the Evang. Kirchen- 
Zeitung , a Jewish secret society, the Kagal, 
“ exercises the most dangerous authority over 
the persons and the property of the Jews, and its 
members show themselves the most radical of 
Nihilists. From this association have pro¬ 
ceeded the so-called Anarchists, who, in the 
end of May, 1880, issued a diabolical pro¬ 
gramme from Geneva, in which they opposed 
every tendency to those more peaceful paths, 
which, since the accession of Melik off to power, 
had seemed possible to many of the Nihilist 
party. They wished to destroy from the 
foundation everything that was in any way 
connected with Gentile nationality and Christi¬ 
anity.” * With this agrees the testimony of 

* Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeituvg, Berlin, den 14 Au¬ 
gust, 1880 : article, “ Die Dictatur in Russland.” 



202 


THE JEWS; OR, 


Prof. Wassiljew, of the Imperial University of 
St. Petersburg, given in The (London) Times , 
that “it is an open secret that the Jews are 
among the leaders of the nihilistic agitation.” 
The correspondent of The Times who quotes 
this testimony, while himself disposed to doubt 
the statement, says that the conviction that this 
is the case, has pnt off the emancipation of the 
Jews in Pnssia for an indefinite period. 

In a late review of a translation of Victor 
Tissot’s Russians and Germans , The (London) 
Spectator refers to the testimony of M. Tissot 
to the same effect as follows: “ M. Tissot calls 
attention to the notable fact that the Nihilist 

ranks are largely recruited by Jews. 

There are ten times as many Jews as there are 
Russians, Poles, or Germans. And, what is 
still more remarkable, the Jewish women are 
more prominent than the men in the Nihilist 
movement. They appear to be impressed with 
the spirit and resolution of Judith, prepared to 
risk everything in avenging themselves on their 
oppressors.” * 

The feeling of the Russian Government in 
the matter is strikingly illustrated by the fol¬ 
lowing remarks of the Rev. S. G. Wilson, a mis- 


* The Spectator, June 10, 1882: article, “Russians 
and Germans.” 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 203 

sionary to Persia, in a letter lately published,* 
written from Odessa. He says: “ The muni¬ 
cipal government of the city is controlled by 
the Jews, who number about 30,000. They 
are, however, held in check by the general gov¬ 
ernment. In Vienna we had noticed a large 
number of sign-boards in Hebrew duplicating 
the German, but none such appeared in Odes¬ 
sa, being prohibited on the principle of checking 
anything showing Jewish power and influence.” 

It is true that many Jews impatiently deny 
that there is anything in such statements as 
these concerning the special relation of the 
Jews to the revolutionary movements in Russia. 
Nevertheless, while making all due allowance 
for exaggerations which may be due to a fa¬ 
natical hate, the facts are such as to have con¬ 
strained the belief on the part of many of the 
most competent, and, so far as one can judge, un¬ 
biased observers, that, not unnaturally, goaded 
as he is by oppression, the Jew has been, and is, a 
notable factor in the revolutionary forces which 
are threatening the Russian Empire. In fact, 
however unwilling Jews at a distance maybe to 
admit it, we have Jewish testimony to the same 
effect from Russia itself. The St. Petersburgh 
correspondent of The Jewish Chronicle , himself 
of course a Jew, laments the “ nihilistic” color- 


* In. The Presbyterian Banner , Pittsburgh, Pa, 



204 


THE JEWS; OR , 


ing which has been given to the Palestine ques« 
tion by its Jewish advocates in Russia, and 
adds, very frankly, “ If we have succeeded dur¬ 
ing the last three or four decades in leading the 
native Jews into the fold of modern civiliza¬ 
tion, we have unfortunately, in the same time, 
learnt a great deal from the Russian nihilists.” * 
All this is confirmed by the issue of recent 
trials of nihilists in Russia, where, out of sixty- 
three convicted persons, no less than nineteen 
were Jews; a number, it need not be said, out 
of all proportion to the number of the Jews in 
any province of the Empire. 

"Whatever, therefore, may be the explanation 
of the fact, it is certain that, in one way or an¬ 
other, directly and indirectly, the Jews and Juda- 
ism are to a most remarkable extent responsible 
for the revolutionary tendencies of ourage. They 
are largely responsible for that unsettling of faith 
in the great verities of Christianity, which, by 
weakening the sense of a divine sanction for 
those social and governmental relations which 
are essential to the permanence of the present 
organization of society, has been the necessary 
moral antecedent of these revolutionary move¬ 
ments ; they are also responsible, in a notable 
degree, for the actual inception and continuance 
of these dangerous agitations. 


* The Jewish Chronicle, Aug. 18th, 1882, p. 4. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 205 

Abundant evidence might be given, and that 
of the highest character, to show that in this we 
are not expressing a merely personal opinion. 
The fact is noted by many of the most compe¬ 
tent observers of our times. Thus, as regards 
the anti-Christian religious movements of the 
day, Pastor and Prof. Heuch, of the Seminary 
of Practical Theology, in Christiania, Norway, 
in a work reviewing the lectures of Prof. Braude, 
of the University of Copenhagen, a “ Reform 
Jew,” uses the following strong language: 

“ The anti-Christian movement which is making itself 
felt in our day is essentially of Jewish origin, is fed 
from Jewish sources, and born Jews are its most ener¬ 
getic advocates.This has already been said so 

often that it almost begins to seem trite. And yet it 
is needful ever to emphasize the fact anew, that in our 
days that opposition to Christianity which is the most 
brilliant, the most thorough-going, the most fanatical, 
and hence in every respect the most effective, proceeds 
.... from that Israel which has preserved from the tra¬ 
ditions and the faith of the nation nothing except its 
proud self-consciousness of being superior to other peo¬ 
ple, and its inextinguishable hatred of that Christianity 
which it recognizes as the cause of its pariah-like 
position among the nations.” * 

As regards the social and political upheavings 

* “ Reform-judische Polemik gegen das Christenthum im 
Gewande moderner Aesthetik kritisch beleuchtet durch 
F. C. Heuch. Deutsche Ausgabe. 




206 


THE JEWS; OR, 


of the age, a writer in The Nineteenth Century t 
on this subject, states the facts as follows: 

“Now comes what is perhaps the most remarkable 
feature in the whole of this continental movement. 
Much has been said from time to time of the power of 

the Jews in modern society.But the influence of the 

Jews at the present time is more noticeable than ever. 
That they are at the head of European capitalists, we 

are all well aware.In politics many Jews are in 

the front rank. The press in more than one European 
capital is almost wholly in their hands. The Roths¬ 
childs are but the leading name among a whole series 
of capitalists, which includes the great monetary chiefs 
of Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Frankfort. They have 
forced their way into the nobility of every country, and 
in all the vast financial schemes of recent years the hand 
of the Jews has been felt both for good and for evil. 
That their excessive wealth, used as it has been, acts 
as a solvent influence in modern society, cannot be 

questioned.But while on the one hand the Jews 

are thus, beyond dispute, the leaders of the plutocracy 
of Europe, .... another section of that same race, form 
the leaders of that same revolutionary propaganda 
which is making war against that very capitalist class 
represented by their own fellow Jews. Jews—more 
than any other men—have held forth against those who 
make their living, not by producing value, but by trad¬ 
ing on the differences of value ; they, at this moment, 
are acting as the leaders in the revolutionary movement 

which I have endeavored to trace.In the period 

which we are approaching, not the slightest influence 
on the side of revolution will be that of the Jew.” * 

* The Nineteenth Cejitury , Jan., 1881: article, “ The 
Dawn of a Revolutionary Epoch.” 







PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 207 

To the same effect very many of the best men 
m Europe, and most thoughtful observers of the 
tendencies of the age, freely express the belief 
that the Jews in their present and prospective 
position among the nations, do very seriously 
threaten the permanence of the distinctively 
Christian type of social and political life. They 
agree with the king of Prussia, who, in 1847, just 
before the completion of the emancipation of the 
Jews in that kingdom, said that their full emanci¬ 
pation would be found “ incompatible with the 
well-being of a Christian state.” Herr Stocker, 
—one of the court preachers to the Emperor of 
Germany and an evangelical man, in a late ad¬ 
dress bitterly complains of the continued ridicule 
and scoffing which the Judaised press of Germany 
“ continually casts upon the holiest sanctities of 
the Christian religion.” He says that he “ can 
no longer look on with a quiet conscience when 
he sees how the Jews, while holding tenaciously 
by their own religion, seek to destroy the faith of 
Christendom”; that, what with the Jewish serv¬ 
ice of mammon and the Jewish control of the 
press, “ Germany is actually threatened with de- 
christianization by means of the Jews.” * Using 


* Report of Hofprediger Stocker’s Address, in the 
u Beilage zu JVu. 239 der Neuen Preussische’n Kreuz- 
Zeitung above cited. 



208 


THE JEWS; OR, 


unconsciously the very image employed by the 
prophet Zechariah* in his prediction of the de¬ 
structive power which the Israel of the last days 
shall exercise over the Gentiles, the editor of 
the Kirchen-Zeitung endorses this with the 
remark that u modern Judaism threatens to be¬ 
come a consuming fire to the German nation,’ 1 f 
and elsewhere adds that “the whole spiritual life 
of Austria also, is likely to fall wholly under 
the influence of the Jews.” £ 

It is true that the Jewish press and many 
persons who form their opinions, consciously or 
unconsciously, under Jewish influence, denounce 
and abuse this same Herr Stocker unsparingly, 
as if his judgment and opinions were of no 
account, and he were only animated by the 
spirit of the mediaeval persecutors of the Jews. 
But he stands by no means alone in his appre¬ 
hensions. On the contrary, many of the most 
eminent representatives of the evangelical faith 
in Germany, seem to share his convictions as to 
the evil and danger of the present relation of 
the emancipated Jews to the Gentile nations in 
the midst of whom they dwell. Thus the ven- 

* Zech. xii. 6. 

f Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung, Berlin, den 25. Octo* 
ber, 1879 : article, “ Hofprediger Stocker und das mod* 
erne Judenthum.” 

X den 13. Marz, 1880, in above-cited article. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 209 

erable Prof. Delitzscli, of Leipzig, himself a 
Jew by birth, deservedly honored throughout 
the Christian world, in a late pamphlet on the 
subject of the attitude of the Jewish press, says 
that he writes as of constraint, but that he 
“ cannot allow the public defamation of Chris¬ 
tianity by the Jewish press to go on longer 
without a public counter-testimony ; and that, 
if anti-Semitism gain anything from his protest 
against this Jewish abuse of the Christian re¬ 
ligion, the fault is theirs who weary not in claim¬ 
ing for Judaism a world-historical mission,—not 
only along with Christianity, but in opposition 
to Christianity; and, on the other hand, in cry¬ 
ing down the mission of Christianity as an en¬ 
snaring of silly souls, enticing to apostasy from 
the one true God.” * What reason he has for 
writing the earnest tract from which we quote, 
abundantly appears from the numerous citations 
which he gives from the modern Jewish press, 
European and American. They are character¬ 
ized by an almost incredible hatred and malig¬ 
nant defamation of the holiest things of the 
Christian faith. 

In like manner, Prof. Christlieb, of the ITni- 
versity of Bonn, has lately called attention to 


* Christenthum und die judische Presse: Vorwort; 
8. 4. 


14 



210 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the effective opposition of the Jews through the 
press to the work of evangelical missions. In 
his recent book on Protestant Foreign Mis¬ 
sions , he says that he “ would lay great stress 
on the shameful fact that the Liberal press, . . . . 
the greatest power in forming public opinion, 
is for the most part in Germany in the hands of 
the Reform Jews, the bitterest of all the oppo¬ 
nents of Missions,” and pleads with his readers 
that they would u seek to free themselves from 
the Jewish spirit of the age.” * This attitude 
of aggressive antagonism to Christianity, which 
the emancipated Jews are assuming, however 
little noticed by the unthinking many, who 
never look behind acts and events for agents 
and causes, is a sign of the times as grave as it 
is remarkable. The confident expectation and 
determination of these enfranchised Jews, that 
not Christianity, but Judaism—divested indeed 
of what was ceremonial and temporary—shall 
yet win the world against Christianity, when we 
remember their control of the capital of the 
world, of the press, and their confessedly mar¬ 
vellous success in modern life, acquires a serious 
significance. 

To those unfamiliar with the facts which bear 
upon this question, no doubt the suggestion of 


* Protestant Foreign Missions ; New York, 1880: p. 48. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 211 

such an idea as existing among intelligent Jews, 
will seem so absurd as only to be dismissed at 
once with a smile of contempt. The fact, how¬ 
ever, of such a purpose and anticipation, and its 
grave omen for Christendom, under present con¬ 
ditions, has of late been much emphasized by 
many eminent Christian men in Europe. To 
illustrate, Missions-Inspeetor Lictor Platt, in a 
recent course of lectures before the University 
of Berlin, said:—“Everywhere one thought rules 
the Jews—the thought that the Christian ideas 
shall at last be vanquished by the Jewish; and 
their common effort is directed to this end,—to 
supplant Christianity in the collective life of 
the nations.” * In like manner writes the Chris¬ 
tian editor of one of the leading evangelical 
papers of North Germany :—“Among the Jews 
themselves the conclusion is reached, not that 
the Jews will have to turn to Christianity, but 
that the Christians will have to be turned to the 
Jewish faith.” f So also a Jewish writer quoted 
in the same paper, remarks with all assurance 
that “Keformed Judaism is the confession to 


*Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung , Berlin, den 27. August, 
1881: article, “Was machen wir Christen mit unsern 
Juden ? ” 

f Ib.y den 4. Februar, 1882 : article, “Englische Part - 
einahme lei den russisch-jiidischen Conflicten 



212 


THE JEWS; OR , 


which the dominating church must return, if 
she will complete her reformation.” * 

Encouraged by the progress of “ liberal ” ideas 
in Christendom, prominent Jewish authorities 
have of late even proposed to help forward the 
wished-for and anticipated triumph of Judaism 
in a practical way. The late eminent Rabbi, 
Dr. Benisch, urged before his death that the 
ancient order of the “ proselytes of the gate ” 
should be revived, in order to provide for the 
reception into the Jewish fold of the increasing 
number of those who are dissatisfied alike with 
Christianity and with the godless scepticism of 
the day.f This proposition of Dr. Benisch has 
of late been taken up afresh by The Jewish 
Chronicle , the leading organ of orthodox Juda¬ 
ism in England, which, urging the assembling 
of a Synod of the Jews of Europe and America, 
mentions this revival of the order of proselytes, 
as one of the special subjects which should be 
brought before the Synod, should it meet.;j: It 


* Neue Evang. Kirchen-Zeitung , den 19. November, 
1881: article, “ Die Reformation im Jwlenthum .” 

t The Contemporary Review , July, 1878: article, “ The 
Future of Judaism,” by the Rev. Canon W. IT. Freman¬ 
tle. lie remarks on the above proposition, “ This is the 
high-water mark of Jewish hopes.” 

X The Jewish Chronicle, October 20th, 1882: article, 
“A Jewish Synod, II.” 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. £13 

is anxious to “ facilitate,” it kindly assures us, 
<( the admission of Gentiles to communion of 
faith with Jews,” for the sake of those liberal 
Christians, who, to use the language of the edi¬ 
tor, have “ outrun the main body of Christians 
and come up with the rear-guard of Judaism ! ” * 
The relation of these Jewish efforts and an¬ 
ticipations to the tendencies of that so-called 
“liberal theology,” which denies the Godhead 
and atonement of the Lord Jesus, has been 
lately pointed out in eloquent language by Prof. 
Godet, of Lausanne. Warning his readers of the 
danger threatening Christendom from the Jew¬ 
ish deism, he adds :— 

“On bearing this word ‘ Jewish,’ many of you perhaps 
smile. That which bears that title does not seem to 
them very dangerous for the church. They do not say, 
‘ Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? ’ but 
‘Can anything dangerous to us come out from thence ?’ 
To this contemptuous smile I will oppose another, that 
of the Israelites themselves—I mean the intelligent Is¬ 
raelites—when they see us Christians bestirring our¬ 
selves for the propagation of the Gospel, .... and 
carrying the religion of the Bible to the ends of the 
earth. This religion, they say quietly, is our religion. 
All these pains you take are taken for us.For 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Oct. 6th, 1882: “ Notes of the 
Week.” Further remarks on the same subject may be 
found in the same paper, Dec. 8th, 1882: article, “The 
Lesson o tHanueah'' 




214 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the God of the Christians is the God of Abraham^ 
Isaac, and Jacob—die God of the Jews. The doctrine 
of Jesns is none other than that of our prophet**. One 
thing only separates us from tlmse Christians—the wor¬ 
ship of the Christ. Let this absurd dogma of the di" 
vinity of a man—one that is contrary to the most ele¬ 
mentary principles of monotheism—1< t this last rem¬ 
nant of the ancient paganism living on in Christianity 
fall to the ground, and the Gospel, thus purified, is Ju¬ 
daism! Christians, we are waiting for you! It is not 
we who are coming over to you ; it is you who are com¬ 
ing over quietly to us.So think, and so speak 

clear-sighted Jews.”* 

To these expressions of opinion on the pres¬ 
ent and prospective influence of the Jews for 
evil upon the life of the Gentile nations and 
churches, may be added the weighty and earn¬ 
est words of Prof. Ebrard, of the University 
of Erlangen, who, in his recently published 
Apologetih , uses the following language:— 

“Where do we stand ? To him wdio will attentively 
consider the signs of the times, it will appear as if our 
time might be compared to the last year of the minis¬ 
try of Christ, when the great mass of the people, who 
before had followed Him in a half-blind enthusiasm, 
turned away from Him and left Him alone with His 
disciples. Also is it in these days that same Semitic 
people, which, having entered into the phase of a mod¬ 
ern Sadduceeism, i3 working as the chief agitator to 

* Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith: pp, 

816, 817. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


215 


turn the masses of the Germanic and Germano-Romau 
nations astray in their Christian faith—to form a prop¬ 
aganda for the pantheistic view of the world, and so 
destroy the Aryan nationalities.”* 

Wonderful in this respect alone has been the 
change within the last half century in the rela¬ 
tion of the Jews to the nations in the midst of 
whom they live. Even so late as 1834, Mr. 
Iiabershon, while speaking in his work on the 
prophecies of the mighty influence for evil, 
which, according to the teachings of the 
prophets—as he with many others understood 
them—the Jews would then soon begin to ex¬ 
ercise upon the Gentile nations, could not but 
refer to the apparent impossibility at that time 
that the Jews should ever become a serious 
danger to Christendom. He wrote at that 
date:— 

“We are accustomed to look upon the Jews as so 
powerless and contemptible a people, from whom noth¬ 
ing can possibly be apprehended, that we consider it 
impossible that they can have any influence in the 
great movement that has for the last forty years been 

going forward in Europe.Thus we judge from 

appearances! and it is probable that the cabinets of the 
five great powers, as they are called, would smile with 
derision, were it for a moment suggested that their 

* Apologetih. WissenschaftlicheRcchtfertigungdesChris- 

tenthims . 2, Auflage, Giitersloh, 1880: II, Theil, 8. 591, 




216 


THE JEWS; OR , 


greatest danger, their complete overthrow, was con¬ 
nected with the affairs of this despised people. So did 
Pharaoh, and so did Belshazzar; but, in so doing, they 
knew not that they forgot Him who hath declared that 
He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” * 

Already those anticipations of his, formed 
from a study of the prophetic Word, are in a 
wonderful manner realized. How different the 
attitude of the Jewish nation appears to 
thoughtful men to-day, witness the testimonies 
of such men as Professors Delitzsch, Christlieb, 
Godet, Ebrard, of M. de Lavaleye, and the 
many others whose words we have given. 

Thus we have again applied the test of fulfil¬ 
ment to the literal interpretation of the prophe¬ 
cies of . the Jewish restoration, and with the 
same result as before. A beginning fulfil¬ 
ment seals the prediction and witnesses to its 
interpretation. The Scriptures tell us of a time 
to come in a the latter days” when Israel 
is to be freed from their subjection to the 
Gentiles. They also repeatedly declare that 
the same time should be a time of trouble for 
the Gentile nations, of overturning and destruc¬ 
tion ; and further, that this tribulation of the 
nations should be brought about in a marked 


* A Dissertation on the Prophetic Scriptures. London, 

1834 : p. 185 . 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


217 


degree by the agency—direct or indirect, con¬ 
scious or unconscious—of the Jews themselves. 
The predicted deliverance of Israel has appar¬ 
ently begun; with it has begun, no less certain¬ 
ly, a time of revolutionary trouble for Gentile 
Christendom; and again, even as foretold, it is 
also the fact that the Jews, in the deepest and 
truest sense, are the chief ultimate authors of 
the trouble, and are being used as instruments 
in the hands of a sin-avenging God for the af¬ 
fliction and sore judgment of the Gentile na¬ 
tions. 

This is something new , be it observed, in 
human history. It cannot be said of this, as 
is often and truly said of many so-called signs 
of the times, that ct it has often been so before.” 
It has never been so before, but it is so now. 
It is the Jews, who, in the persons of Spinoza 
and Maimonides, have had a chief part in the 
origination of our modern rationalism with all 
its endless train of mischiefs. It is the Jews— 
in so many places now emancipated from the 
bondage of centuries—who, favored with every 
advantage that the possession of immense cap¬ 
ital and of education and the control of the 
press can afford, are giving their whole 
strength, with the greatest ability and a sad 
degree of success, to the extension of that anti- 
christian movement against all evangelical re- 


218 


THE JEWS ; OX, 


ligion which the Jew Spinoza two hundred 
years ago began. So also is it the Jews, again, 
who, aided by those democratic principles 
which are determining the history of modern 
Christendom, appear among the foremost lead¬ 
ers in those destructive social and political 
movements which, in the opinion of many of 
the most thoughtful observers of history, even 
threaten the permanence of our present Chris¬ 
tian civilization. 

Can any one fail to see what this means ? 
The prophets said nearly three thousand years 
ago that when Israel should be delivered in 
the last days from the domination of the Gen¬ 
tiles, that people should become to the na¬ 
tions among whom they should be found, as a 
consuming “fire” and as “a lion” to destroy 
them. It is a matter of simple historic fact 
that in this respect also, as in all those pre¬ 
viously noted, the predictions of the prophets 
concerning the restoration of Israel appear to 
have already entered upon their fulfilment—a 
fulfilment,—not in any spiritual Israel nor in 
any figurative sense,—but in a manner as literal 
as that in which all other predictions regarding 
that people have been fulfilled thus far. 

8. Yet one other and last test is inevitably 
suggested by the terms of the predictions of the 
restoration. Tlioeo prophecies make all else to 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


219 


culminate and terminate in the return of the 
scattered nation to the land of their fathers, an 1 
their conversion to the faith of the Pierced 
One as their promised Messiah. Israel, as a 
nation, has not yet returned. And yet it 
might not unreasonably be anticipated, if this 
was indeed to take place, that as the final hour 
approached, the history of the time should be 
seen gradually shaping itself in preparation for 
that issue. And if this should so appear, it is 
plain that it would add another very weighty 
and almost decisive confirmation to our argu¬ 
ment for the literal interpretation of these 
restoration prophecies. What then are the 
facts ? 

The answer is scarcely less clear than in each 
case before considered. It is the undoubted 
fact that since the political emancipation of the 
Jews began, just those movements which on 
the hypothesis of literal interpretation were to 
have been expected, looking and tending to¬ 
ward the re-establishment of the Jewish nation¬ 
ality in Palestine, have indeed in recent times 
begun. This is not the mere fancy of a few 
students of the prophecies, who might be tempt¬ 
ed sometimes to mistake fancy for fact. The 
subject, as every one conversant with the peri¬ 
odical literature of the day knows quite well, 
has become matter of not infrequent discussion, 


220 


THE JEWS; OR , 


as among tlie political possibilities of our time. -3 * 
The [London) Spectator, which does not look 
with favor on the project of the restoration of 
the Jews to Palestine, remarks that “while the 
question has not yet come within the range of 
practical politics, yet it has ceased to be, what 
it would have been thought fifty years ago, by 
all except a few students of prophecy, ridicu¬ 
lous.” f How much ground there is for this re¬ 
mark, we shall soon be able to show. 

The suggestion that the scattered Jews 
should be sent back to their own land, so far 
as we are aware, was first made in recent times 
by Fichte, in 17934 Six years after that, as 
already noted, Napoleon, when in Syria, issued 
a formal proclamation, inviting the Jews of 
the east to return under his auspices to Pales¬ 
tine. It is true, indeed, that Napoleon’s pro¬ 
ject failed for that time. But it is a matter of 
historic fact, that from that time on to the 
present, and especially within the past twenty- 


* See Preface, p. 1 . 

t The Spectator , May 21st, 1881: “ Book Notices.’’ 

| His words were,—I see no other means to protect 
ourselves from them (the Jews) than to conquer for 
them their promised land, and thither send them all.” 
Beitrag zur Berichtigung des Urtheih des Publicums ub&r 
die franzdsische Revolution , 2. Aufl., S. 182; quoted 
by Griitz: Geschichte der Juden, xi. Bel., S. 249. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


221 

five years, the question of supremacy in Jeru¬ 
salem has been steadily pressing itself more and 
more upon the attention of the statesmen of 
Europe, and is at present recognized by all as a 
question that must before very long be settled, 
No one needs to be told that the gradual decay 
of the Ottoman power lias been one of the most 
notable and conspicuous facts of this century. 
That the power which for several centuries 
past has held the sceptre of Jerusalem must 
finally fall at no distant day, may be regarded 
as one of tlie political certainties of a not very 
remote future; and that the collapse of the 
Turkish power involves the question of domin¬ 
ion in Palestine, is self-evident. 

First, in this century, of important events 
tending in this direction, was the Greek war 
of independence, in 1822, by which the Turk 
lost Greece. Since then he has lost Servia, 
Boumania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, then more of 
Greece, and last of all Tunis; while no one 
doubts that, before long, Egypt, Armenia, and 
Arabia, will fall away from the Sultan in their 
turn. Thus, by an apparently inevitable ne¬ 
cessity, it seems certain that before very many 
years it will be one of the foremost questions 
in European politics, who shall succeed the 
Turk in the administration of Palestine. In¬ 
deed, this is—one may say—the very centre of 


222 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tlie so-called “Eastern Question,” and one of 
the most difficult of the problems involved. 
The intensity of the mutual jealousies of the 
great powers of Europe, especially Russia, Eng¬ 
land, and Eance, upon this question of power 
in the Holy Land, is well known to every per¬ 
son who is at all familiar with contemporary 
history. It is practically certain that no Gen¬ 
tile power in Europe, which could possibly be 
regarded as a candidate for dominion in Jeru¬ 
salem, will be allowed in peace to take posses¬ 
sion of Palestine, when the Turk shall let it go. 
In this critical juncture of affairs, the possibil¬ 
ity of solving the difficulty by resettling the 
Jews in the land which once belonged to them, 
has begun to be discussed by the press of Eu¬ 
rope, as one, at least, of the plans deserving of 
consideration.* 

* So proposes, among the latest. Prof. Goldwin 
Smith, in The Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1882. He 
says: “ I speak without prejudice to a remedy of another 
kind, which may help to lighten the pressure of the 
existing crisis—the restoration of Palestine to Israel. 
I ventured to advocate this before, and I see that it is 
advocated by a far more powerful voice than mine—• 
that of Canon Farrar.Cyprus is now pretty gen¬ 
erally allowed to he a white elephant or worse. 

Let it be given back to the Turk, if the Turk will give 
back Palestine to the Jew.” Article, “ The Jews: a 
Deferred Rejoinder.” 





PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


223 


To reinforce this growing sentiment, has now 
come in as the latest development in this di¬ 
rection, the anti-Jewish movement in Central 
and Eastern Europe, where the largest number 
of Jews is found. It is plain that—with what¬ 
ever reason or lack of reason—a large part of 
the Gentile populations of Eastern Europe 
wish in almost any way to be rid of their Jews. 
But why should they not then be sent to Pal¬ 
estine, and so help Europe to settle peaceably 
the dreaded Eastern Question ? Here is a peo¬ 
ple so few in number that no powder could be 
jealous of their occupancy of that strategic re¬ 
gion of the Holy Land; a people, moreover, 
who, as gathered out of and thus in a manner 
representing various nationalities, would pre¬ 
sumably not aid or sympathize with one power 
rather than another, in any ambitious projects 
of conquest; a people besides who for the most 
part are heartily disliked by those in the midst 
of whom they are now living. Why then should 
not the Jews go to Palestine ? Such thoughts 
as these find more and more frequent expres¬ 
sion of late years among thinkers of every class, 
many of whom care as little as possible for ful¬ 
filling anything that may be written in God’s 
prophetic Word. 

In addition to all this it is the undoubted 
fact that those great principles which since the 


THE JEWS; OR , 


224 

first French revolution have been the chief 
formative factors in the history of Christen¬ 
dom, involve, as their logical and practical issue, 
the restoration of the land of Palestine to the 
Jews if they want it. Those formative princi¬ 
ples, as affecting the question before us, are the 
following. First and fundamental is that of 
the equal rights of all men, irrespective of race 
or creed. This principle, embodied in the fun¬ 
damental law of the government of the United 
States, announced as their watch-word by the 
French revolutionists of 1789, inevitably in¬ 
volved as its corollary, the complete emancipa¬ 
tion of the Jews from all those disabilities and 
oppressions under which they had groaned for 
ages, and their elevation to full equality of 
political right and privilege with other men. 
Everywhere that this principle has been recog¬ 
nized this consequence has been frankly ac¬ 
cepted, and to this modern doctrine do the Jews 
owe their civil emancipation so far as it has yet 
progressed. 

Closely connected with this is the so-called 
principle of nationalities, namely: the right of 
every race or nation, as such, to govern their 
own land, to elect their own form of govern¬ 
ment and the rulers who shall administer it. 
This is the principle which the powers of Eu¬ 
rope have thus far steadily applied to the set- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 225 

tlement of the Eastern Question, so far as it 
has hitherto advanced. That principle hag 
given Servia to the Servians, Roumania to the 
Roumanians, Bulgaria to the Bulgarians, Greece 
to the Greeks, as also, outside the dominions 
of the Sultan, it gave Italy to the Italians, 
brought forth the united empire of Germany, 
and is to-day the soul of that Pan-slavonic 
movement which is giving Europe so much un¬ 
easiness. But it is self-evident that when in 
the progressive dissolution of the Turkish em¬ 
pire, to the Greek, the Armenian, and the 
Egyptian questions shall succeed in due time 
a Syrian question, this same principle of the 
right of nationalities—announced by the great 
powers as their solvent of the Eastern Question 
—will by an irresistible logic demand in due 
order that Palestine be given to the Jews, if 
they will have it, as beyond doubt the only 
people on the earth who can show any well- 
substantiated claim to the land. 

It is thus the indisputable fact that by the 
irresistible tendency of events, and, still more, 
the irresistible operation of the great principles 
which are working behind those events, and 
are dominating the politics of modern Europe, 
the question whether the Jew shall not have 
the dominion of Palestine, is silently and 
steadily coming to the front as one of the fore- 
15 


228 


THE JEWS; Ok, 


most political questions of a not very distant 
future. But even this is not all. Concomitant 
with this progressive dissolution of the Otto¬ 
man Empire, and the steadily extending opera¬ 
tion of the great fundamental political principles 
of the century, we see other no less signifi¬ 
cant movements all alike pointing toward the 
same issue. 

Until the year 1841, only 300 Jews were per 
mitted to live in Jerusalem. In that year this 
restriction was removed, though the Jews were 
still confined by law to a narrow and filthy dis¬ 
trict of the city next to the leper quarters. In 
1867, however, by a firman of the Sultan, this 
restriction also was removed, and the Jews 
were allowed, in common with all foreigners, to 
purchase and own land in Palestine without be¬ 
coming subjects of the Sultan. Next in the 
order of significant events came the beginning 
of the Ordnance Survey of the Palestine Ex¬ 
ploration Eund, recently completed on the west 
of the Jordan, which will, no doubt, in due 
time, be finished in Eastern Palestine also, as 
soon as Turkish affairs shall permit the return 
of the engineers to their work. Singularly does 
this remind us, in the midst of so many suggest¬ 
ive signs of the time, of those words of the 
prophet-psalmist,—“ The time to favor Zion, 
yea, the set time, is come; for thy servants 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 227 

take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust 
thereof.” * * 

It was so late as 1861 that the learned exposi 
tor of the prophecies, the Rev. E. B. Elliott, in 
his great work, the Ilorcc Apocalyptical, refer¬ 
ring to the evident appearance already of not a 
few signs of “ the time of the end,” wrote,—“At 
the same time some signs are still wanting, even 
as I revise this a fifth time in 1861; especially 
the non-gathering, as yet, of the Jews to Pales¬ 
tine, and the predicted troubles consequent.” f 
Only six or seven years after that, began the 
anticipated movement. The Rev. James Neill, 
for several years resident in Jerusalem, tells us 
that “ no sooner was the law passed ” in 1867, 
allowing foreigners to hold landed property in 
Palestine in their own name, than many Jews 
began to avail themselves at once of the right. 
The movement was further accelerated in 1874 
by the adoption by Russia of the German sys¬ 
tem of military conscription, whereby the Jews 
—for the most part previously exempt from 
military service—found themselves all obliged 
to serve in the ranks for their worst oppressor. 
At once began a movement of the Jewish popu¬ 
lation from Russia to Palestine. On this point 




* Ps. cii. 13, 14. 

f Iloras Aiiocalypticce, 5tli ed., London, 1863: p. 243. 



228 


THE JEWS; OR , 


Mr. Neill tells us, that he has repeatedly been 
told by Jews in Jerusalem and “ by Turkish 
officials, who were in a position to know,” that 
“the Russian Jews in a body have, ever since 
the adoption of the German system of military 
service in 1874, anxiously sought to leave Mus¬ 
covite territory, and settle in the Holy Land.” 
“They cannot, if they would, escape all at once. 
The stream of emigration, however, is now slowly 
but steadily flowing toward Emmanuel’s land.” * 
These words were published in 1877. Since 
then the outbreak of the Jewish persecutions in 
Europe, especially in Russia, have, as will ap¬ 
pear in the sequel, still further quickened this 
Palestinian movement. As the result, we are 
told in the article “ Jerusalem,” in the Encyclo¬ 
paedia Britannica , that the Jewish population 
of Jerusalem has risen from 3,000 in 1838, to 
over 10,000 souls. Another (later ?) estimate in 
the same work, in the article, “Jews,” makes 
the Jews in Jerusalem to number 15,000, or one- 
half of the population. Still more recent esti¬ 
mates, as, e. g ., that of Mr. He Haas, lately 
IJ. S. consul at Jerusalem, number them as hioffi 
as 20,000. The number may seem small, but it 
is to be remembered that this estimate, which 


* Palestine Rcpeopled, by Rev. James Neill, Loudon, 
1877: chap. ii. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 229 

takes no account of Jews found in other parts 
of Palestine, is yet nearly one-half the whole 
number that returned in the restoration from 
Babylon. 

And it is while these changes have been 
slowly and silently taking place, that the ques¬ 
tion of the reinstatement of the Jewish nation 
in Palestine, apparently quite unnoticed, strange 
to say—at least in America—by the great ma¬ 
jority of the professed expounders of the Word 
of God, has quietly passed out of the region of 
mere prophetic speculation into the sphere of 
the political discussions of the day. The so- 
called “ Jewish Question,” in its various aspects, 
furnishes the theme for an ever increasing num- 
her of essays in the leading reviews, magazines, 
and newspapers of Europe and America. The 
feeling of a considerable party in England was 
expressed a while ago, when in a meeting of 
the Palestine Exploration Society in the Jerusa¬ 
lem Chamber, November 20th, 1880, Mr. Mac¬ 
Gregor, speaking to a resolution to undertake 
the survey, since begun, of Eastern Palestine, 
argued the importance of the work as bearing 
on the present movements for the restoration 
of the Jews, calling attention to the fact that 
“ there is to-day a very strong feeling on the 
part of many influential persons that something 
should be done in England which would enable 


230 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tlie Jews to go back to Palestine.” * A writer 
in The British Quarterly , reviewing Lieut. 
Con tier’s Tent Worh in Palestine refers un¬ 
favorably to a suggestion of his that Palestine 
should be occupied by some strong European 
power, and expresses himself inclined to regard 
Maj. Warren’s suggestion as more hopeful, that 
“ the only way to settle the Eastern Question, so 
far as Palestine is concerned, is for the Jews 
themselves to have it back; a suggestion which, 
for different reasons, has occurred to a great 
many people.” f 

Even writers of popular novels, caring as lit¬ 
tle as any one can for the realization of any pro¬ 
phetic theories, weave “ the Jewish Question” 
into their writings, and even make their charac¬ 
ters argue for the restoration of the scattered 
nation to their land. Not to speak of others, 
the late Lord Beaconsfield and “George Eliot” 
are examples which will occur to every one 
familiar with literature of this class.J The lat¬ 
ter writer, not very long before her death, 
according to a Berlin paper, left the reserve of 

* Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund, Jau., 1881. 

t The British Quarterly , Oct., 1878: article, “Tent 
Work in Palestine.” 

I See, e. g., Daniel Deronda , cliaps. xlii., lxix., and 
Impressions of Theophrastus Such , chap, xviii. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. <231 

the novelist, and in a pamphlet published at 
Hamburg, argued for the erection of a Jewish 
State in Palestine “on which the world might 

o 

look as the ideal of a perfect State.” The great 
principles of the century, to which we have 
already adverted, are urged by political writers, 
as evidently requiring this issue. It is even said 
by some that the Jews are already so numerous 
in that thinly-settled land as to outnumber any 
other single race, so that the land should be 
given to them for that reason also. 

And thus, as the Ottoman power moves on to 
its predestined dissolution, these two questions, 
—What shall be done with the Jews as they are 
found in various Christian lands ? and—What 
shall be done with the land which once belonged 
to them ?—force themselves simultaneously and 
more and more imperatively on the attention 
of the statesmen of Europe, who, as if by a half 
blind presentiment of the awful calamities that 
stand predicted for the nations, when Israel 
shall reoccupy their land, are only desirous to 
postpone the ultimate decision of the Eastern 
Question so long as may be possible. But 
God’s eternal purpose evor moves irresistibly 
on, regardless alike of the wishes and the fears 
of statesmen, and of the opinions and theories 
of theologians. Movements looking toward a 
restoration of the Jewish nationality in Pales- 


232 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tine continually multiply more and more. Even 
before the recent Russian persecutions had 
given new impulse to the movement of the 
Russian Jews toward the Holy Land, The Jew¬ 
ish Chronicle wrote, “We are inundated with 
books on Palestine, and the air is thick with 
schemes for colonizing the Holy Land once 
more.” * 

Prominent among these projects has been 
that of Mr. Laurence Oliphant, the author of 
The Land of Gilead and other works, who 
three years ago submitted to the Sultan a 
scheme for the colonization of the fertile lands 
east of the Jordan by Jewish colonists, and 
forming a Jewish province tributary to the 
Porte. The project was said to have had the 
approbation of the late Lord Beaconsfield, at 
that time Prime Minister of England, and also 
of Minister Waddington of France. It was 
not indeed approved by the Sultan, but such a 
plan, formed under such auspices, and under 
the present political and social conditions of 
Europe, was none the less a very noteworthy 
sign of the time. It is indeed often said, as 
against the probability of a literal restoration, 
that a large part of the Jews do not want to go 
to Palestine, and this is undoubtedly true. 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Dec. 17tli, 1880. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 233 

Giving to this fact the utmost possible weight, 
we might still remind those who urge this as an 
objection to the probability of a literal fulfil¬ 
ment of the predictions of the restoration, that 
many prophecies have been fulfilled which 
those most concerned had no desire to see ful¬ 
filled. But in so far as the present state of the 
Jewish mind is to be regarded as bearing on the 
present argument, we place against the fact 
that a large part of the Jews in the west do not 
wish to return to Palestine, the other fact that 
a larger part of the nation—in fact, the great 
mass of the Russian and Oriental Jews —do 
long for such a return. 

There is abundant evidence that the desire 
for the restoration of Jewish nationality in Pal¬ 
estine, however it may have died out with 
most of the comfortable Jews in "Western Eu¬ 
rope and America, is keenly alive and active in 
that larger part of the nation which is found in 
Eastern Europe. Events in the east have of 
late followed one another with a rapidity and 
decision which is most impressive to one who 
seeks prayerfully to watch the gradual unfold¬ 
ing of the great plan of God preannounced in 
the prophets. God himself has of late taken 
up the so-called “ Jewish Question ” in such a 
remarkable manner, that we can no longer be 
told that the restoration of the Jews is not to 


234 


THE JEWS; OR , 


be expected because the Jews themselves do 
not want to go. Whatever of indifference, and 
even of hostility to the idea there may he even 
still among the advanced Jews of the so-called 
“ Reformed ” synagogue, indifference on the 
subject among the greater multitude of the or¬ 
thodox Jews of Eastern Europe, if it ever existed, 
appears on the most abundant and unanimous 
testimony to have ended. The savage out¬ 
breaks of anti-Jewish feeling in Eastern Europe, 
especially in the Russian Empire, have awakened 
in full intensity the ancient longing for the prom¬ 
ised land. 

All accounts agree in representing the feel¬ 
ings of the Russian Jews as intense and almost 
unanimous upon this subject. A writer in The 
Jewish Chronicle says: “ Israel must once 
again take up the staff of the wanderer, and 
abandon the graves of his ancestors. Where 
are the poor people to go ? This question the 
Jews of Russia have themselves answered. 
The greater portion have determined to pro¬ 
ceed to Palestine, the scene of our former 
glory and independence.” * To the same effect 
is the testimony on all hands as to the state of 
feeling among the Russian Jews, who, be it 
remembered, number not less than about four 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Feb. 17th, 1882. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 235 

millions, or from one-third to one-half of the 
whole Jewish race. 

The same testimony is given as to the half 
million of Jews who live in Rou mania. “ The 
Russian and the Roumanian Jews*’—again says 
The Jewish Chronicle —“are bent on going to 
Palestine. Whatever we may think or say as 
to the practicability of the new exodus, it is 
evidently to take place. To all the objections 
to Palestine colonization that can be pointed 
out, the Jews of Russia and Roumania have 
one all-sufficient reply—We cannot be worse off 
there than here ! The movement is irresisti¬ 
ble.’’ This statement as to the feelings of the 
Eastern Jews as also of those conservative 
orthodox Jews in the west who sympathize 
with them, is well illustrated by the language 
of an eloquent Jewish writer on “The Modern 
Exodus.” After referring in connexion with 
the Russian persecutions to the history of the 
Egyptian bondage and the exodns under Moses, 
he says:— 

“ Once more are we on the eve of the Exodus ! . . . . 
It wants no prophetic eye to see that the Russian Em¬ 
pire is on the eve of one of the greatest revolutions that 
the world has ever seen. The time has arrived for 
Israel to depart thence, and for the exodns, greater 

even than the original one, to commence.But 

whitherward shall the steps of the millions of Israel be 
bound ? Shall he again, as in the exodus from Spain, 


236 


THE JEWS; OR , 


betake himself to other and more friendly lands, to be 
again, perchance, in the course of time driven from 
them? No! a thousand times no! For the sake of 
our unborn posterity, let this, by God’s help, be the 
final exodus of our race. The land of promise is now 
subject to a power who can barely struggle against 
financial difficulties. That power is cot unfriendly to 
Israel; his sovereign rights should be purchased with 
no niggard hand, and the independence of Israel estab¬ 
lished under international guarantee. What Israelite 
worthy of the name would hesitate in giving his quota 
toward the redemption of the land ? Once under a 
stable and just government, the land would again flow 
with milk and honey, and Jewish enterprise, capital 
and industry, combined with the geographical situation 
of the country, would cause prosperity once more to 
shine upon it. Rome, Greece, and Egypt are once more 
numbered among the nations, and the shophar* which 
announces the resurrection of Israel, the eldest born of 
the nations, should soon wake the echoes in the mount¬ 
ains of Judah. To Israel, this restoration should 
prove an unmixed blessing; for possessing a political 
centre, the dread of persecution would no longer haunt 
her sons. Composed—as the nation would be—of men 
of one race and one faith, yet of various nationalities, 
it would be the most cosmopolitan state that the world 

had ever witnessed : and when the dav arrives that 

1 •/ 

the nations will be contented to submit their disputes 
to arbitra'ion instead of to the issue of the sword, from 
whence will the Law be so fitted to go forth as from 
Jerusalem ? ” 


* Trumpet. 

f The Jewish Chronicle , Feb. 24th, 1882. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 237 

ISTor is this remarkable movement among the 
Jews for beginning the return of their nation 
to the land of their fathers spending itself 
merely in emotions and benevolent resolutions. 
Within the past year or two the Jews of East¬ 
ern and Southeastern Europe have formed 
many active organizations for the express pur¬ 
pose of aiding and promoting a general emigra¬ 
tion of the nation from those regions to the 
Holy Land. In almost every town of any size 
in Roumania have been organized “Palestine 
Colonization Societies,” managed in many cases 
by the wealthiest and most prominent members 
of the Jewish community. 

On the 4th of May, 1882, a general convention 
of all the Palestine Emigration Societies in 
Poumania—at that time forty-nine in number 
—was held in Jassy, to appoint delegates to go 
to Palestine and select land, or make arrange¬ 
ments with the Turkish Government concern¬ 
ing the matter. Money was freely subscribed 
to the cause, and we are told that the meeting 
was large and full of enthusiasm. So notable, 
indeed, has this Palestinian movement in Rou- 
mania become, that it was lately made the sub¬ 
ject of an interpellation in Parliament, and the 
ministry were urged by a representative of the 
anti-Jewish party to do all in their power to 
promote this return of the Jews of Roumania 


238 


THE JEWS; OR , 


to Palestine, that so the country might be rid 
of them. Similar movements appear in Rns« 
sia. We read of different parties, some num¬ 
bering as high as several hundred families, who 
have left or have made all arrangements to leave 
Russia for the land of their fathers. These, we 
are assured, are by no means altogether the 
poor of the country, but, in many cases, men 
of sufficient means to reduce the risks of the 
removal to a minimum. According to a Jew¬ 
ish writer in The Century , up to last summer 
more than £2,000,000 had been raised to help 
forward the movement to Palestine from East¬ 
ern Europe! * 

The significance of this rising tide of Jewish 
feeling is the greater, that so many from 
among the Gentiles are moving for Israel’s 
help in a degree never before seen in history. 
In this respect the great Mansion House meet¬ 
ing in London, February 1st, 1882, may be taken 
as a typical event. There the world saw a spec¬ 
tacle strange to history—a great spontaneous 


* The Century , February, 1883: article, “The Jewish 
Problem,” p. 610. See also the Nineteenth Century , 
August, 1882: article, “ The Jew and the Eas'ern Qu< s- 
tion,” for further testimony by the most competent au¬ 
thority as to the feelings of the Jews of Eastern Eu« 
rope touching this question. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


239 


gathering of the representatives of every shade 
of religions and political opinion, assembled to 
consider the tribulations of the Jews and how 
they might be delivered from them. Conspicu¬ 
ous among those present or in some way repre¬ 
sented at the meeting was Cardinal Manning, 
the eminent representative of that Church to 
which especially the most awful sufferings of 
the Jews in the middle ages are to be ascribed. 
With his name appear those of the Primate of 
England, the Bishops of Oxford, of Gloucester 
and Bristol, the Earl of Shaftesbury, besides 
those of Mr. Darwin, Mr. Tyndall, Alfred 
Tennyson, and many other of the most promi¬ 
nent men in the scientific, literary, ecclesias¬ 
tical, and political world. 

A further illustration of the feelings of many 
in England is afforded by the arrangements 
made by the wealthy banker, Mr. Cazalet, who 
seems to be interesting himself in the fortunes 
of the Jews. He has obtained, we are told, 
from the Sultan, in connexion with negotia- 
tions for the concession of the Euphrates Rail¬ 
way, tracts of land in the vicinity of xldana 
and Aleppo, and especially in Mesopotamia, 
extensive enough to admit of Jewish immigra¬ 
tion on almost any scale. The land is granted 
for twelve years free of taxes to Jewish immi¬ 
grants on condition of their becoming Turkish 


240 


THE JEWS; OE, 


subjects.* Even in Germany, despite the anti- 
Semitic agitations, we find as signatures of an 
appeal in behalf of the Jewish fugitives from 
Russian violence, the names of twenty-eight 
members of the German Parliament, of the 
eminent Professors Mommsen and Virchow, and 
ten other University professors, besides many 
councillors of state and members of the clergy. 

We may sum up the present state of the case 
in the words of the Italian correspondent of 
The (New York) Evening Post: 

“As by common instinct the thoughts of all nations 
turn to Palestine as the ultimate refuge of the persecu¬ 
ted Jews. In a Russian town last year they were 
driven from their homes to the refrain, ‘ Go to Pales¬ 
tine 1 go to Palestine!’ The heart of the faithful 
Jew responds to this, even when the red cock crows 
and he sees the terrified faces of his beloved ones by 
the lurid glare of his burning possessions. The domi¬ 
nant idea of the Eastern Jew, whatever maybe that of 
his co-religionist in Western countries, is to return to 
Palestine. Not only the poor, .... but also the 
wealthy Jew thinks of inhabiting once more the land 
of his forefathers. This is no longer a dream of vision¬ 
ary Bible students, but an actual reality.The 

question of the return of the Jews to Palestine now 
seems to be one that interests all nations.”! 


* This statement is given in the Jewish Chronicle , 
Sept. 1st, 1882, on the authority of Mr. Cazalet himself, 
t The {New Yorlc ) Evening Post , April 7th, 1882. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 241 

Such, then, is the present state of feeling 
regarding the restoration among a large part of 
the Jewish nation. It is true that there are as 
jet grave obstacles to the realization of this pro¬ 
posed return of the Oriental Jews to the land 
of their fathers. Chief among these is the fir¬ 
man which the Sultan issued within the past 
year with reference to these same colonization 
movements among the Jews of Russia and 
Roumania, wherein he authorizes them to set¬ 
tle in all parts of his dominions, excepting only 
Palestine. But there is probably less in this 
prohibition than at first appears. The Jewish 
Chronicle calls attention to the fact that in the 
Turkish official language Palestine includes 
much less than in the Jewish and Christian 
use of the term ; namely, it is restricted to the 
small territory of the pashalik of Jerusalem. 
Outside of that, in other parts of the country 
as well as in all Syria, according to the under¬ 
standing of this leading Jewish organ, there is 
no prohibition of settlement. The firman in 
question, therefore, if correctly thus interpret¬ 
ed, would not exclude the Jews from the en¬ 
tire land of the covenant, but only for the time 
from a small part of it.* Besides this, it is also 

* It is to be borne in mind in this connexion that the 
land as given in covenant to the fathers, which is prom¬ 
ised to the nation in the latter days, reaches from the 
1G 



24:2 


THE JEWS; OR , 


to be added that it has been interpreted as ap« 
plying only to the refugees from Russia and 
Roumania. 

Moreover, we are told that the movement 
has already gained such strength, that it is not 
likely to be wholly stopped by a decree which 
the Porte in its extreme weakness may not be 
able to enforce. In proof of this, in The Jewish 
Chronicle it is asserted that 

“Despite the Sultan’s veto large numbers of Russian 
Jews have settled in the Holy Land, without any ob¬ 
stacles being placed in their way by the Turkish Gov¬ 
ernment.As soon as a favorable intimation 

shall come from Constantinople, the rush of Jews to 
Palestine, in spite of the antipathy of the rich Jews, 
will be something enormous; and not tens, but hun¬ 
dreds of thousands will use their best endeavors to 
make the land of their ancestors what it once was—a 
land flowing with milk and honey.” * * 

In corroboration of these statements we find 
several instances noted in which, since the pub¬ 
lication of the Sultan’s prohibition, parties of 
Jewish emigrants have been allowed to settle 
not only in Syria, but also in Palestine itself. 
One hundred Jewish emigrants, sent under the 

Mediterranean to the Euphrates. (See chap, iii., pp. 
71-75). 

* “ A Narrative from the Borders of Russia,” in Thi 
Jewish Chronicle, June 30th, 1882. 




PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT . 243 

care of an English association, under the aus¬ 
pices of the Earl of Shaftesbury and others, left 
London for Northern Syria last August. Not 
very long since delegates of a Roumanian Emi¬ 
gration Society succeeded in purchasing land 
even in Palestine itself, in the vicinity of Safed ; 
the Turkish authorities, notwithstanding the fir¬ 
man of prohibition, duly legalizing the pur¬ 
chase.* So late as the middle of February, 1883, 
we read of a company of eighty-seven Russian 
Jewish emigrants passing through Berlin on 
their way to a new colony in Syria, about fif¬ 
teen miles from Bevrout, wdiere between two 
and three hundred emigrants are already set¬ 
tled, f 

Reference has already been made to the 
common opposition of a large part of the Jews 
of Western Europe and America to the pro¬ 
posed resettlement of Palestine by their nation. 
This opposition is usually based upon the ra¬ 
tionalistic views of the prophecies which are 
held by the Jews of the “Reformed” syna¬ 
gogue ; as also on the fact that life and property 
are at present so insecure in Palestine that it 
wmuld be unwise and even impracticable for an 
extensive emigration to be directed thither 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Sept. 1st, 1882. 
f Ib. } Feb. 23rd, 1883. 




244 


THE JEWS; OR , 


This last consideration is without doubt at pres¬ 
ent of valid force; but the one thing which 
seems to be quite certain is that the present 
state of things in Palestine cannot last indefi¬ 
nitely. No one doubts that, as other provinces, 
so also at no distant day Palestine and Syria 
must drop out of the hand of the dying Otto¬ 
man power. 

Whatever the reasons may be which make a 
considerable part of the Jewish nation as yet 
averse to a restoration of their national life in 
Palestine, it is certain that causes are in opera¬ 
tion which may easily combine to alter their 
mind. Give security of life and property in 
Palestine, and a chance to make money there ; 
combine with that such an increase of the rap¬ 
idly growing dislike and jealousy of the Jews 
in Central and Eastern Europe, and even else¬ 
where, as seems far from unlikely, and the Jews, 
one and all, may soon be glad enough to go to 
Palestine. As for the security of life and prop¬ 
erty which is undoubtedly necessary before 
emigrants in any large numbers will be attracted 
to Palestine, it is the avowed and steady policy 
of the great powers of Europe as regards the 
Eastern Question, to establish this security 
throughout the territory now ruled by the Sul¬ 
tan. Moreover with the settlement of the 
Eastern Question, if not before, it can hardly 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 245 


be doubted that the land of promise will be¬ 
come the terminal point of the Euphrates Val¬ 
ley Railway, and gain all the advantages of 
such a position on the great highway between 
Asia and Europe. Under conditions such as 
these,—which are to all appearance likely to be 
realized in a not very distant future, and are 
already freely discussed in the leading reviews 
and journals of the world,—Palestine at no re¬ 
mote day w T ill easily present inducements to 
the immigrant and even to the capitalist, which 
are as yet in great measure wanting. Another 
element in the present situation, which is of no 
little account in its bearing on this part of our 
argument, is set forth with much force by The 
(New Torh) Nation in the following lan¬ 
guage :— 

“ Capital has fixed its eye on the magnificent region 
known as Asia Minor, and found it full to overflowing 
of material for handsome returns, which nothing pre¬ 
vents it from getting at, but insecurity and oppressive 

taxation.The money markets in London and 

Paris, now that they will not lend the Sultan any more 
money, are beginning to in-ist with a subtle, silent, 
but always in the end irresistible persistence, which 
unemployed capital knows so well how to exert, that 
he mud at least give them a chance at his mines and 
his minerals and his wheat-fields, olive yards and vine¬ 
yards ; must let them carry their own police with 
them and fix their own taxation.From this the 




246 


THE JEWS; OR, 


Ottomans are probably in greater clanger at this mo¬ 
ment than they have ever been from the armies of the 
Czar.” * 

When we remember that the capital of the 
continent, we have seen, is for the most part 
in the hands of the Jews, such words as these 
will appear to have in the-ir bearing on the 
present argument, no trifling significance. 

But whatever may be the present obstacles 
to a return of the Jews in any number to their 
own land, it is plain that they do not in the 
least affect the fact on which alone the present 
argument rests ; namely, that in our day, quite 
unexpectedly to all but the few students of 
God’s prophetic Word, two questions have sim¬ 
ultaneously arisen in the social and political life 
of the modern world, and are ever pressing 
more and more urgently for solution ; namely, 
—What shall be done with the Jews ? and— 
What shall be done with Palestine ?—while a 
large part of the Jews themselves, wisely or un¬ 
wisely, profess that they wish to solve this ques¬ 
tion themselves, by leaving the lands where 
they are oppressed and are not wanted, and oc¬ 
cupying the land of promise. 

All this is indisputable, and the bearing of 
it on our argument is clear. We have argued 


* The Nation , May 22nd, 1880. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 247 

that if those who interpret the Scriptures as 
foretelling a literal restoration of the Jewish 
nation to the land of promise he in the right, 
then it were reasonable to expect that when¬ 
ever the time of the restoration should draw 
near, there would appear movements and tend¬ 
encies preparatory for and pointing toward such 
an issue. By way of further testing, if possi¬ 
ble, the literal interpretation of these restora¬ 
tion prophecies, we therefore raised the in¬ 
quiry whether or not there have appeared in 
the present century, and especially in our own 
day, anywhere in the political horizon, any pos¬ 
sible indications of the approach of such a nota¬ 
ble and significant event. The result of this 
inquiry has been to make it clear, that what¬ 
ever the future may bring forth, the affairs of 
the world within the past century have taken 
such a shape that the question of the possible 
restoration of the Jewish nationality in Pales¬ 
tine, has passed out of the exclusive domain of 
the theologian and expositor of Scripture into 
the arena of political discussion. 

This century has undoubtedly witnessed the 
rapid decay and disintegration of the govern¬ 
ment which has for several centuries held the 
Holy Land. It has witnessed within the last 

t/ 

ten or fifteen years a very general and unpre¬ 
cedented interest among men of all forms of 






248 


THE JEWS; OR , 


religious and political opinion, in the question 
of the future disposition of the Jewish nation. 
It has witnessed very lately the unexpected re¬ 
moval of most of those disabilities which until 
of late practically forbade the settlement of 
Jews in any number, within any part of the 
land of promise. It has witnessed within tho 
past year or two a surprising outbreak of sav¬ 
age persecution of the Jews in those regions 
where the greater part of them are found. As 
the immediate result of this, we see a sponta¬ 
neous movement of great numbers of these 
persecuted Jews to go and take peaceable pos¬ 
session of the land of their fathers. Whatever 
be the final issue, it is the fact, variously at¬ 
tested, that a stream of Jewish immigration has 
within the past fifteen years begun to flow 
quietly into Palestine. Simultaneously with 
this, by reason of various political and social 
complications, we see the question, which a 
hundred years ago would have been regarded 
as a political absurdity, claiming the deliberate 
attention of the thinkers of the world, whether 
the interests of the world mav not ere lon£ 
demand the reconstruction of a Jewish state in 
Palestine. Is there any ambiguity about these 
facts ? 

Add now this last mark of the time in which 
we live to all the foregoing,—and can we, as 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


249 


men wlio believe in God’s Word, regard these 
as all only so many accidental coincidences? 
Must we not rather see in this most remark 
able combination of events, long ago predicted 
as to come to pass in “the time of the end,” 
the most impressive evidence that all the an¬ 
cient predictions concerning Israel’s restoration 
in “ the latter days ” are soon to receive, not a 
figurative, but a most literal, astonishing, and 
exhaustive fulfilment? The facts which we 
have brought together in this chapter are not 
such as we would have had any reason to anti¬ 
cipate if the figurative interpretation of the 
promises to Israel were correct; but they are 
precisely such as were to be expected if the 
literal interpretation of the prophecies were 
correct. 

Nor can the force of this argument be 
evaded by the common remark that “such 
things have been always happening.” Tt is 
quite certain that such things have not been 
always happening. It is certain that down to 
the latter part of the last century there had 
never been any general movement toward the 
emancipation of the Jews since the Babylonian 
captivity. The solitary attempt of the Em¬ 
peror Julian in the fourth century to restore 
Jerusalem, by its remarkable failure only ren 
dered more conspicuous the truth of that pre- 





250 


THE JEWS. 


diction of our Lord which it was his aim to dis¬ 
credit, that Jerusalem must be “ trodden down 
by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles 
be fulfilled.” The course which history has of 
late been taking as regards the Jews is, there¬ 
fore, without a precedent. We are herein con¬ 
fronting a new phenomenon in the history of 
the world, and one, as we shall see, which is in 
various ways of the most momentous signifi¬ 
cance. What its significance may be, see in oui 
next and last chapter. 


CHAPTER Y. 


RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSIONS. 

“ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words 
shall not pass away.” —Matt. xxiv. 35. 

The argument of this book may now be 
summed up as follows. In the first place, we 
called attention to the very remarkable and 
unique character of the various phenomena 
which have distinguished the history of the 
Jewish nation to the present time, noting in 
particular their extraordinary influence on the 
faith and the practical religious life of the 
world, their unparalleled experience of exile, 
scattering, and persecution for more than two 
thousand years, and the persistence notwith¬ 
standing of their separate national existence 
and peculiar racial characteristics. In the next 
place, attention was directed to the fact that all 
that is most exceptional and was a priori most 
unlikely to have taken place in that long his¬ 
tory down to the present time, is found record¬ 
ed centuries in advance of its occurrence. 

(251) 



252 


THE JEWS; OR , 


That record is contained in books which pro¬ 
fess to have been written by prophets of that 
nation, and which—whatever be the exact date 
of their composition—were indisputably pub¬ 
lished to the tforld centuries before the pre¬ 
dicted experiences of the nation had been fully 
realized or could have been possibly anticipated 
by the natural reason of man. 

From all this it was argued that the facts are 
such as cannot be rationally explained, except 
we assume in the history of the Jews the mys¬ 
terious working of a power and wisdom more 
than human; and, in particular, that we must 
recognize the claim of foreknowledge obtained 
through supernatural revelation from God, 
which these same prophets make for them¬ 
selves, as abundantly justified by the continu¬ 
ous and minutely literal fulfilment of their 
predictions concerning the fortunes of Israel 
throughout more than two thousand years. 
In the light of these facts we argued that we 
were compelled by all the principle^ of sound 
reason to recognize—both in the formation of 
those Israelitish Scriptures, and, in one way or 
. another, in all the history of that nation hith¬ 
erto—the continual presence and activity of the 
living God, in a manner seen nowhere else in 
the annals of our race. 

The next fact to which we directed our at* 

; * 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 253 

lention—namely, that much in the words of 
these old prophets yet remains to be fulfilled—• 
becomes, therefore, of the greatest interest. In 
particular, we emphasized the fact that they re¬ 
peatedly predict the coming of a day in “the 
latter times ” when the afflictions of Israel shall 
end forever, and they shall at last be gathered 
from their long exile back into their own land, 
converted from their long apostasy and hard¬ 
ness of heart, and made to be a seed of blessing 
to the world. It was therefore argued on the 
basis of the facts before mentioned and the di¬ 
vine inspiration of those predictions thereby so 
fully proven, that as thus far all that was pre¬ 
dicted has in due time come to pass, so are we 
constrained to believe and expect that in due 
time all that remains will also be fulfilled. 

It was further argued that the fulfilment of 
these promises must throughout be realized in 
the same people and in the same literal sense 
in which all the threatenings against the Jew¬ 
ish nation have been fulfilled. This was shown 
first,—in accordance with the general faith of the 
church—as regards the predicted conversion of 
the nation to the faith of Jesus as the Christ; 
and then, by parity of reasoning, as regards 
aho the predictions of the reinstatement of the 
nation in their own land. We thus reached the 
conclusion that we must expect, according to 



254 : 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the Word of God, that the Jewish nation will 
in the fulness of time be restored to their own 
land, and then and there owning the Crucified 
One as Messiah, become and remain a holy na¬ 
tion to the Lord. 

But since the correctness of this literal inter¬ 
pretation of these temporal promises to the 
Jewish nation has been and is by some so 
strenuously denied, last of all we raised the 
question whether it were possible as yet to 
test, in any tentative way, the truth of this in¬ 
terpretation by historical fulfilment. On re¬ 
viewing the facts of history as bearing on this 
question, we found that there is no denying or 
escaping the fact that—whatever the final issue 
may prove to be—the past century has seen the 
beginning of a fulfilment of the temporal prom¬ 
ises to the Jews as literal and national in its 
character as was the fulfilment of the threats 
of overthrow. 

We observed that the prophets foretold the 
restoration as apparently, like the subjugation 
of the nation, a gradual process. They foretold, 
moreover, not merely the return to the Holy 
Land and the conversion of the nation, but also 
various circumstances attendant on the restora¬ 
tion ; as, namely, that the nation should be de¬ 
livered from its political subjection to the Gen¬ 
tiles, Jer. xxx. 8; that there should appear a 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 255 

preliminary tendency to organization, Ezek. 
xxxvii. 7; that their numbers should remarka¬ 
bly increase, Jer. xxxi. 27, 28; that the wealth of 
the Gentiles should in a notable degree pass over 
to them, Is. xxxiii. 1, Ixi. 6; that they should 
obtain “ praise and fame 55 in all the lands where 
they had been put to shame, Zeph. iii. 19, 20; 
that simultaneously with this elevation of the 
Jewish nation should come distress and over¬ 
whelming judgment upon the nations among 
whom they should be scattered, Jer. xxx. 11, 
Dan. xii. 1; and that this should be due, in a 
very special manner,- to Jewish influence, Mic. 
v. 8, 9; and finally, that at last, as the issue of 
all this, they should be restored as a nation to 
their own land, Ezek. xxxiv. 13. 

In every one of these divinely specified par¬ 
ticulars, we have shown it to be a matter of fact 
that within the past hundred years there has 
been and is still in progress a clear incipient 
fulfilment of the temporal promises made to Is¬ 
rael for the latter day. It is an indisputable fact 
—a matter of frequent comment—that within 
the past hundred years an unprecedented change 
lias taken place in the condition of the Jewish 
nation. That period has witnessed, in the first 
place, a political emancipation of the nation 
through the largest part of Christendom, which 
is still steadily progressing, and is favored by 




256 


THE JEWS; OR, 


the dominant principles and tendencies of the 
age; it has witnessed, again, a tendency of the 
nation, almost everywhere, to organization in 
various ways for national purposes ; a remarka¬ 
ble increase in their numbers ; a rapid transfer of 
wealth from the Gentiles to the Jews ; the rapid 
rise of the Jews, wherever emancipated, to po¬ 
sitions of power and influence; along with all 
this, distress and judgments upon the Gentile 
nations among whom the Jews are found, which 
distress and danger are to be traced, to a remark¬ 
able extent—directly or indirectly—to Jewish 
influence; while, last of all, has begun, in spite 
of much opposition within the nation and with¬ 
out, a steady movement of the Jews to possess 
the land of their fathers, favored more and 
more by all the political tendencies of the time. 

It may not be amiss to call attention also to 
the fact that all these events are of the more 
significance that their occurrence at just this 
period of the world’s history had long been an¬ 
ticipated, on purely Scriptural grounds, by many 
students of God’s Word. During the past three 
hundred years many expositors of the prophe¬ 
cies, of the highest reputation for learning and 
sobriety, have given expression from time to 
time to the opinion, based on their belief in 
the correctness of the literal system of interpre¬ 
tation, and also in the truth of w r hat is known 
as “ the year-day interpretation ” of prophetic 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


237 


chronology, that somewhere about the present 
period the world might expect to see the restora¬ 
tion of Israel begin. 

Mede, early in the seventeenth century, dat¬ 
ing the beginning of the second half of the pro¬ 
phetic u seven times” from a.d. 455—though 
with a careful reservation as to any u precise 
determination ” of the time—expressed his be¬ 
lief that the work of restoring Israel would be¬ 
gin soon after that period should run out,—that 
is, some time in the eighteenth century.* At 
the other extreme stands the opinion of the Rev. 
Robert Fleming, who, in a work published in 
1701,f suggested that the decay and downfall of 
the Ottoman power was probably to be expected 
between the years 1848 and 1900, when, as he 
conceived, the overthrow of other anti-Christian 
powers might be anticipated, this to be followed 
about a hundred years from now by the full 
restoration of Israel. About fifty years later, 
Bishop Newton gave it as his opinion that the 
restoration of the Jews would begin about 1,260 
years after the rise of Mohammedanism; i. e ., 
in the latter part of the present century.£ To 

* See Works of Mede, pp. 814-820; also his Key to 
the Apocalypse, ed. of 1650, p. 118. 

t The Iiise and Fall of Papacy. See pp. 60, 61, et seq. 

I Dissertations on the Prophecies, New York, 1794: vol. 
i., p. 386; vol. ii., p. 387. 

17 






258 THE JEWS; OR, 

tlie same effect Dr. G. S. Faber, writing about 
the beginning of this century, ventured the 
opinion that “ the times of the Gentiles ” would 
run out about 1866, and that the restoration of 
Israel would then commence, and with it a time 
of unexampled trouble. The restoration, he 
thought, would probably be a gradual process, 
occupying in all about seventy-five years, (argu¬ 
ing from Dan. xii. 11, 12), and would be fur¬ 
thered by two maritime powers in the west of 
Europe. “ Most probably,” he remarks, “ poli¬ 
tics will have taken such a turn at that event¬ 
ful period as shall make it seem to be the inter¬ 
est of both these great powers to attempt the 
restoration of the Jews.” He adds that “ it will 
inevitably be a time of great calamities to the • 
Jews.”* Testimonies to the same effect might be 
multiplied, all of which go to show that the idea 
of a restoration of the Jews at about the pres¬ 
ent period of the world’s history is no new 
thought, suggested by certain events and tend¬ 
encies of the time, but has been expressed by 
a large proportion of the most eminent scholars 
who have interpreted the prophecies on certain 
principles, at various times during the last two 
or three centuries. How far their anticipations 


* Dissertations on the Prophecies: vol. ii., pp. 244, 254, 
256, 259. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 259 

appear in a way to be realized, the facts given in 
the previous chapter v T ill enable the reader to 
judge. 

The conclusions to which we are led by this 
line of argument are many and momentous. 
Some of them have been already indicated in 
the course of the discussion. We briefly reca¬ 
pitulate these, adding certain others. 

1. First of all, the facts set forth in this book, 
as proving the occurrence of veritable pre¬ 
dictions of the distant future in the various 
books which make up the Christian Scriptures, 
bear decisively upon the general credibility of the 
whole history which is narrated in those books. 
It is sometimes plausibly urged that when we 
meet with accounts of what profess to be super¬ 
natural events, in other books—for example, the 
Buddhist scriptures—we all admit that the 
presumption against their real occurrence as 
narrated, is practically overwhelming. Why, 
then, should we regard the miracles which we 
find narrated in the Bible, in any different light ? 
To this, many answers might be given ; but the 
present argument suggests an answer of special 
pertinence and force. If the fact of real pre¬ 
diction be proven in the Holy Scriptures; if, 
moreover, all Jewish history seems from the be¬ 
ginning to have been the matter of a special and 
exceptional divine revelation and predetermina- 




260 


THE JEWS; OR , 


tion ; tlien accounts of wliat are asserted to have 
been supernatural events in connexion with the 
history of that people, cease to be intrinsically 
incredible. It is reasonable that we regard with 
incredulity the stories of miracle with which we 
meet in the Hindoo Puranas or the Buddhist Jata- 
kas, because this seal of prediction fulfilled and 
fulfilling is totally absent both from those books 
and from the history of the people to whom those 
books pertain. But to infer that hence it is also 
reasonable to be in like manner incredulous of 
stories of miracle when found in the scriptures 
and the records of a people whose whole his¬ 
tory appears to have been miraculously fore¬ 
known and written in advance, is utter fallacy. 
The cases are not similar, but sharply contrasted. 
If there be anything in the facts set forth in 
this work, it is not too much to say that they 
throw the whole presumption as regards the 
miraculous element of Biblical history on 
the other side. Miraculous interpositions in 
connexion with the history of a people with 
such a record as the Jews, are not incredible, 
but become rather even a priori probable. 
The accounts of miracles, therefore, in the 
Scriptures in connexion with their history 
make nothing against its credibility, but, rather, 
for it. 

2. But not only does the fact of these fulfill- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


ed and fulfilling prophecies in Scripture raise a 
presumption for its credibility; even more, it 
proves its inspiration. All will agree that this 
is without qualification, the burning question of 
the day—whether the Scriptures of the pro¬ 
phets are, in very truth, the inspired and in¬ 
fallible Word of the living God. We claim 
that the facts which we have brought together 
are such as ought, of themselves alone, to set¬ 
tle that question for every sincere and candid 
mind. The whole history of Israel’s exile and 
oppressions for the past eighteen hundred years 
affords proof positive of foreknowledge in the 
books of the Old Testament. And not only 
that, but especially the facts of Jewish history 
in this very century in which w r e are living, 
when compared with the predictions of the 
prophets concerning the restoration of the Jew¬ 
ish nation, are such as to show with a clearness 
little short of demonstration, that these amaz¬ 
ing predictions of events which are only now 
after more than two thousand years beginning 
to take place, must be, not of man, but of God. 
Who but the Holy Spirit of God could have 
revealed the future with such minute and un¬ 
erring exactness, two or three thousand years 
before the events foretold were to take place \ 
Beyond all doubt it must have been the living 
and omniscient God who “ spake in time past by 



262 


THE JEWS; OR , 


the prophets, and hath in these last days spoken 
unto us by hlis Son.” 

3. In the next place, and by necessary con* 
sequence from the foregoing, we claim that 
these same facts confirm the ancient faith of 
the Jews and of the Church of Christ, as to the 
genuineness and authenticity of the books in 
which these fulfilled and still fulfilling predic¬ 
tions are found written. If it be granted that 
we have good evidence of divine foreknowl¬ 
edge, for example, in the book of Daniel, then 
what becomes of the theory of those learned gen¬ 
tlemen who tell us that the book of Daniel was 
not written by Daniel at all, but was a pious for¬ 
gery of the days of the Maccabees ? Is it mor¬ 
ally conceivable that God should have inspired 
a forgery ? We maintain with confidence that 
the events of the very age in which we are liv¬ 
ing—would men but use their minds to consider 
them—are such as should make our radical 
critics pause and revise their arguments, and 
also check the rash ambition of some who would 
at all hazards be thought abreast the latest crit¬ 
icism, and so ventilate from time to time the 
speculations of their unchastened intellects, to 
the promotion of the increasing unbelief, and 
to the grief of all good men who still hold fast 
the ancient faith of the Church in the inspira¬ 
tion of the Holy Scriptures. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 


263 


Whether any such as these will be affected 
by anything we have written, we know not: 
toD often in the case of such is the word of our 
Lord brought sadly to one’s mind,—“If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead.” But it may be there are some who may 
be strengthened betimes against the seductions 
of the scepticism of our age, if but once their 
attention be called away from theories to facts; 
to that marvellous evidence from prophecy ful¬ 
filled and fulfilling, which, we are often told, 
is out of date and unsuited to our times, but 
with which, if we do not greatly err, the age 
in which we live is even more replete than any 
which has gone before. 

4. The facts which we have given bear not 
only on the question of the inspiration of the 
Scripture, but also upon its interpretation. 
Whatever force they have, more or less, they 
do assuredly go to support the literal as op¬ 
posed to the exclusively spiritual or figurative 
interpretation of the predictions concerning the 
Israel of the latter days. In the nature of the 
case, complete and absolutely final demonstra¬ 
tion can be given only by final and complete 
fulfilment. But surely an incipient fulfil¬ 
ment such as has been apparent during the 
past hundred years, if it do not amount to dem- 



264 


THE JEWS; OR , 


onstration, does yet confirm, foregoing argu¬ 
ments in a degree that, as it seems to us, should 
leave very little room for further doubt. It is 
true that all the currents of the history of our 
time as they bear upon the Jews might be con¬ 
ceivably reversed, but it must be admitted that 
of this there is no visible probability. Rather 
are the principles w T hich have worked out the 
deliverance of the Jews thus far, year by year 
so gaining strength that at no distant day they 
promise to reconstruct the whole ot Christen¬ 
dom. 

In the next place, if the facts are in any wise 
as herein set forth, it is plain that they are 
fatal to the u time-historical ” or “ praeteristic ” 
theory of interpretation as held and taught by 
Profs. Kuenen, Wellhausen, and their English- 
speaking disciples. They prove that theory to 
be false in its fundamental assumption, and 
therefore false in the whole pretended exposi¬ 
tion of the meaning of the prophets which is 
based upon it. That assumption is that—the 
miraculous impartation of knowledge being im¬ 
possible—the so-called “ prophetic vision ” was 
confined to the near historical horizon of the 
age in the midst of which the prophet was liv¬ 
ing. So far is this from being true, that the 

more we have studied the historv and fortunes 

•/ 

of the Jews from the days of the prophets un- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 265 

til now, the clearer has it become that in re¬ 
ality the revelations of the prophets were not 
thus limited, hut took in the whole sweep of 
the ages, quite down to the present time. 

As already remarked, many of the predic¬ 
tions of the prophets concerning the judgments 
that were to come upon the Jewish nation were 
not fulfilled until centuries after the prophets 
who first uttered them had passed away; while 
yet other predictions concerning the restoration 
and elevation of the chosen nation to power 
and influence in the latter days, are even now 
apparently just beginning to be fulfilled. 
Facts such as these forbid us to assume the 
principle that in our interpretation of prophecy 
we should insist that the predictions of a pro¬ 
phet must be merely the reflection of the age 
in which he lived, and the poetic expression of 
his natural hopes for the future. Despite the 
amazingly positive and dogmatic assertions of 
many to the contrary, it is none the less a fact 
that the occurrence of events has been foretold 
in those prophetic books, for which even the 
preparation had not appeared above the horizon, 
when they were first foretold. Of this fact we 
claim that the history of Israel is a luminous 
proof;—a proof so clear that the too common 
failure to see or refusal to acknowledge it, 
would be utterly inexplicable except that this 



266 


THE JEWS; OR , 


very discredit of the prophetic Word in the lat¬ 
ter days was itself also therein predicted.* 

5. One last conclusion,—or, rather, scries of 
conclusions,—seems to follow with irresistible 
force. If, as has been shown, all the threats 
of the prophetic word against the Israelitish na¬ 
tion have been fulfilled, not in a figurative, but 
in the most literal sense ; and if, as is agreed, 
the prophecies of Israel’s conversion are to be 
fulfilled in the same national Israel, in the same 
literal manner ; and if, again—as the facts give 
so much reason to believe—the predictions con¬ 
cerning the emancipation of Israel in the latter 
days from “ the yoke of the Gentiles ” have 
also in our day begun to be fulfilled in the 
same national Israel and in the same literal 
manner; then how can we avoid the conclusion 
that the remaining details, not yet fulfilled, 
will be fulfilled in the same very literal and 
historical manner as all else hitherto ? To sup¬ 
pose that it should be otherwise, were to set 


* Of this 2 Pet. iii. 3, 4, furnishes a ready illustra¬ 
tion, as abo all the many passages which, speaking of 
the terrible surprise which the unexpected return of 
the Lord will be to the world and the Church in the 
time of the end, imply, of course, that the predictions 
of such a return would before that time have fallen 
into very general discredit. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 267 

all analogy at defiance, and utterly destroy the 
homogeneity of these predictions of the restora¬ 
tion. But if all this be true, then we are guilty 
of no intrusion into things not revealed, but 
simply state the testimony of God’s Word, when 
we say the signs of the times in connexion 
with the present position of the Jews, warrant 
us in such anticipations as the following con¬ 
cerning that period of the history of the world 
upon which we are now entering. 

(1). Sooner or later the world will witness the 
reinstatement of the Jewish nation in the land 
of their fathers. They will not, as some sup¬ 
pose, be merged in the nations among whom 
they are scattered, and so lose their nationality, 
but, restored to their own land, they will con¬ 
tinue a nation forever. So far is this from being 
an inference from obscure and ambiguous lan¬ 
guage, that it is declared in one of the fullest 
and most explicit prophecies of the great restora¬ 
tion, with all the solemnity of an oath, by the 
Most High himself. For we read, “ Thus saith 
the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by 
day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the 
stars for a light by night, which divideth the 
sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of 
Hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart 
from before me , saith the Lord , then the seed 





m 


THE JEWS; OR, 


of Israel also shall cease from being a nation 
before me forever I * 

(2). In connexion with this restoration of the 
Jewish nation, the Word of God solemnly fore¬ 
warns ns that we have to look for a day of 
tribulation and consuming judgment upon all 
the nations of the world, such as rebellious man 
has never yet beheld. The godless optimism 
of multitudes in our day, sanguine of man’s 
success in self-government and self-redemption, 
will at no distant day receive a terrific rebuke 
from the throne of the Almighty, “and the 
loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the 
haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the 
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.”f So 
explicit is the Word of God upon this subject, 
that one would think that no one not predeter¬ 
mined to close the eyes to all that was not grat¬ 
ifying to our natural love of ease and flattering 
to our inveterate national and churchly pride, 
could have any doubt upon the matter. The 
day is swiftly coming of which all the great 
judgments that have fallen upon the nations 
hitherto, the overthrow of Nineveh, of Baby¬ 
lon, of Jerusalem, have been but the imperfect 
types and faint foreshadowings. Jeremiah, in 
his great prophecy of the final restoration in 


* Jer. xxxi. 35, 36. 


t Is. ii. 17. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 269 

Jer. xxx., xxxi., has described it in the following 
language:— 

“ Thus saitli the Lord, We have heard a voice of 
trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Wherefore do I 
see every man -with his hands on his loins, as a woman 
in travail, and all faces are turned to paleness ? Alas 1 
for that day is great; there is none like it! It is even 
the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out 
of it. For I am with thee to save thee. O Israel, saitli 
the Lord; for I will make a full end of all the nations 
whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a 
full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure; I 
will not leave thee unpunished.” 

Surely it must be admitted that, in the light 
of predictions like this, which might be cited 
in great number, the present movements and 
tendencies of our time, in which the influence 
of the emancipated Jew r s is so conspicuous, be¬ 
come invested to the mind of the Christian 
with the most ominous significance. The 
Word of God, all whose threats and promises 
have thus far been fulfilled to the letter, tells 
us—not in the language of obscure symbolism, 
but in plainest terms, and with awful distinct¬ 
ness—that all these movements are indeed con¬ 
verging to a crisis of universal judgment such 
as the world has never seen ; a judgment which 
will result in the everlasting overthrow of all 
Gentile government, of whatever sort it be.* 


* 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25. 



I 


270 THE JEWS; OR , 

It is indeed quite the fashion, in these days 
of enthusiasm for “ progress,” to stigmatize all 
such representations as “ disheartening pessim- 
ism” But thoughtful men will agree that to 
fasten an ill-sounding name on anything af¬ 
firmed to be the teaching of God’s Word, is 
not enough to prove it false. The Jews appar¬ 
ently thought Jeremiah’s predictions of the 
coming judgment on their nation discourag- 
ingly “ pessimistic.” * But they turned out 
none the less to be the truth of God. It is 
true that the Word of God does point us for¬ 
ward to “a new heaven and a new earth 
wherein dwelleth righteousness ” ! Absolute 
“ pessimism ” is, thus, as far from the truth of 
God as possible. But that the Word of God fa¬ 
vors the optimistic expectations of many in the 
church as respects the present age and order 
of things,—this we utterly deny. And in this 
we are far enough from being alone. Yery 
many, even in our day, of the profoundest stu¬ 
dents of God’s Word have been led by it to form 
like expectations of a coming judgment which 
shall wholly overturn the present order,—men 
whom no one will venture to accuse of “ pes¬ 
simism ” and a spirit of moral despondency. 
Says Professor Yan Oosterzee, commenting on 


* See Jer. xxxiv. 4. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 271 

2 Tim. iii. 1-9,—“ It is here revealed that the 
optimistic view of the world, which expects but 
a continued triumph of humanism—an advance 
steadily to a higher freedom, culture, and dig¬ 
nity in the future—cannot stand before the 
tribunal of Scripture.” * To the same effect 
Dr. Thomas Chalmers lias also left on record his 
understanding of the teachings of God’s Word 
as follows :— 

“As far as we can read into the prophecies of the 
time before us, we feel as if there were to be the arrest 
of a sudden and unlooked-for visitation laid on the or¬ 
dinary processes of nature and history, and that the 
millennium is to be ushered in in the midst of judg¬ 
ments and frightful convulsions which will uproot the 
present fabric of society and shake the framework of 

its machinery to pieces.I look for the conclusive 

establishment of Christianity through a widening pas¬ 
sage of desolations of judgments, with the demolition 
of our civil and ecclesiastical structures.”! 

We have already had occasion to note how 
even the secular and unbelieving press—in Eu¬ 
rope especially—continually reiterates, often in 
tones of the deepest alarm, that a crisis of the 
most portentous gravity is impending over the 
world. How can we then, who are “ children 


* Commentary on 2 Tim., loc. cit., in Lange’s Com * 
mcntary on the Holy Scriptures. 

f Lectures on the Evidences: vol. i.,.p. 372. 






272 


THE JEWS; OR, 


of the light and of the day, 53 fail with the plain 
words of God before us to a discern the time 5 ’? 
For “ the sure word of prophecy,” not a jot of 
which has ever yet failed of fulfilment, tells us 
plainly that these apprehensions of philoso¬ 
phers and statesmen of our time shall be more 
than realized in a future which apparently may 
not be very distant. 

(3) . The same prophetic word assures us that 
although the Jews in the coming tribulation 
shall not be utterly destroyed, yet for them 
also wrath and judgment is still reserved be¬ 
fore their deliverance shall be fully consumma¬ 
ted. The Jew has yet to learn with all the 
Gentiles that there is no peace—nothing, noth¬ 
ing but wrath and vengeance from God against 
any and every individual, or nation, or race, that 
rejects Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, as 
the Messiah of Israel and anointed Lord of 
men and King of nations. For as to Israel’s 
experience in the days of the great consumma¬ 
tion it stands written, as we have seen, that 
God in that day will not leave Israel unpun¬ 
ished,—that the day in which He makes a full 
end of all the nations whither He lias scattered 
them, will also be in an eminent degree “ the 
day of Jacob’s trouble.” 

(4) . “Immediately after the tribulation of 
those days,” shall be “ on earth distress of nations, 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 273 

with perplexity”;—that is the way in which 
the Lord Jesus described the closing days of 
Israel’s tribulation, w T hen Jerusalem shall cease 
to be trodden down of the Gentiles ! * Is that 
all He said ? Ho, for we read further on that 
lie also said in so many words:— 

“ And then shall appear the sign of the Son 
of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes 
of the earth mourn , and they shall see the Son 
of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory A 

If history thus far have established the prin¬ 
ciple of literality as that according to which 


* In Matt. xxiv. 29 and parallels we read of a “ tribu¬ 
lation” upon Israel “ immediately ” after which begin 
the signs of the imminent appearing of “ the Son ot Man 
in the clouds of heaven.” It is truly strange that so many, 
even among evangelical expositors should have insisted 
upon restricting the duration of this tribulation to the 
events immediately connected with the destruction of 
Jerusalem. For, according to Luke xxi. 24, our Lord 
expressly included in that tribulation not merely the 
events of a.d. VO, but also the captivity of the Jews 
among all nations, and the subjection of Jerusalem for 
a lengthened period to Gentile power. Whatever be 
the nature of that “coming” of the Son of Man, there¬ 
fore, which is to take place “ after” that tribulation, 
that it is even yet in the future is as certain as that 
Jerusalem is to this day “ trodden down of the Gen¬ 
tiles.” “Prmterism” is utterly excluded. 

18 




274 


THE JEWS; OR , 


God has fulfilled and is still fulfilling all these 
Jewish prophecies, how can we escape the con¬ 
clusion that we are absolutely compelled by the 
whole force of the argument up to this point, 
to understand that when we read, here and 
elsewhere, in connexion with these closing scenes 
of the age-long Jewish tribulation, of an appear¬ 
ing of the Pierced One in awful glory to Israel 
and to the world, the words in this case also—as 
in all instances before—really mean exactly w^hat 
they say ? If the argument amount not to a 
demonstration, does it not at least establish a 
presumption for the literal interpretation of 
these words so overwhelming that it can only 
be exceedingly perilous to attempt to explain 
them away? 

(5). But if this reasoning be sound, then it as¬ 
suredly follows from the whole argument of this 
book, that except all the signs of the times in 
the Jewish and the Gentile world be utterly 
misread, it is true for this generation, as never 
before in the history of the church, that “the 
coming of the Lord draweth nigh ! ” Ho man 
can, indeed, declare the day or the hour which 
the Lord has explicitly declared to be hidden. 
Of all the chronological lines which converge 
toward the time of the end, there is not one, 
the absolute beginning of which can be infalli- 


PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 275 

bly fixed, or which can be shown certainly to 
terminate with the year of the Messiah’s appear¬ 
ing. This may be so, or may not be so. Time 
alone can prove. 

Yet, if the restoration of Israel be in fact 
begun, then it is certain that, relatively to the 
bygone portion of this dispensation, the coming 
of the Lord is near. As for this begun deliver¬ 
ance of Israel, it is, indeed, conceivable that 
history may roll backward, and this, with all 
the predicted and now present signs, such as the 
almost universal preaching of the Gospel,* and 
the zeal to complete this work—all disappear, 
like clouds in a dry season ; but does any one be¬ 
lieve this probable ? We remember, indeed, that 
no uninspired interpretation of the Word is to be 
held infallible, and that all application of the 
prophetic word to current history is to be made 
with exceeding caution and prudence, and that 
the utmost modesty and humility may well be 
required of him who will venture to speak upon 
this subject. Yet, certainly, we cannot be amiss 
in obeying the word of the Lord Jesus, who, re¬ 
ferring to the termination of the long Jewish 
tribulation and the terrible distress of nations 
consequent, as ushering in what He called 


* Note our Lord’s express words in Matt. xxiv. 14. 







276 


THE JEWS; OR , 


“ a coming of tlie Son of Man in the clouds 
of heaven,” immediately added, “ When these 
things begin to come to pass, then look up, 
and lift up your heads; for your redemption 
draweth nigh ! ” * And while it is certain that 
He plainly said that to no man nor angel was it 
given to know the day or hour of His appearing, 
yet let it not be forgotten—as it far too often is 
—that in that same connexion He no less plainly 
said that when we saw “ these things ”—the Jew¬ 
ish tribulation ending and the distress of nations 
attendant—beginning to come to pass, we might 
be as sure that He was near, as we are that 
summer is near, when we see the buds begin to 
swell! f 

So clear are the facts, indeed, which lead to 
this conclusion, that one may say that about all 
competent interpreters of prophecy who have 
felt compelled to adopt the literal system of in¬ 
terpretation, have found themselves constrained 
to the same conclusion, that the coming of the 
Lord is now drawing near. So much, then, the 
faithful in our day, as they regard the signs of 
the time, may be permitted to say, with all 
humility of joyful hope,—“ The coming of the 


* Luke xxi. 28. 

+ Matt. xxiv. 32, 33, and parallels. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 277 

Lord draweth nigh ! ” How nigh, He has not 
told us; only this, that at some dateless day in 
connexion- with the closing of the great Jewish 
tribulation, sudden as the lightning flash, 
-Israel’s crucified Messiah will appear ! 

(6). What shall follow thereupon for Israel, 
the prophet Zechariah has told us in very plain 
words, from which our Lord himself, as also 
John His apostle, quotes in referring to the 

glorious appearing:- 

“ I will pour upon the house of David, and 
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of 
grace and of supplications; and they shall look 
upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only 
son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that 

is in bitterness for his first-bom.In that 

day there shall be a fountain opened to the 
house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jeru¬ 
salem, for sin and for uncleanness.” * 

And so shall end forever the long record of 
Israel’s apostasies and crimes. And then shall 
be fulfilled that other word of the prophet 
Zechariah: 

“ It shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse 


* Zech. xii. 10., xiii. 1. Compare Rev. i. 7, and see 
Prof. Plumptre’s comment on the same in his Lectures 
on the Epistles to the Seven Churches , loc. cit. 








278 


THE JEWS; OR , 


among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house 
of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a 
blessing.” * 

And this leads us to the last anticipation in 
regard to Israel which the argument of this 
book leads us to hold, namely:— 

(7). Then shall follow upon the conversion of 
Israel, the promised, turning of the remnant of 
the nations, that shall escape the overwhelming 
judgments of the last times, unto the Lord their 
God. For this we have the uniform declara¬ 
tions of the prophets, who all agree with Zecha- 
riah, who having told us how in that day of 
Israel’s deliverance iC the Lord my God shall 
come and all the saints with thee,” and “ His 
feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of 
Olives,”—adds as the glorious sequel, “ It shall 
come to pass in that day that the Lord shall be 
King over all the earth: in that day there shall 
be one Lonn, and his name one.” f Even so 
the apostle Paul also witnesses concerning the 
conversion of Israel,— 

“ If the fall of them be the riches of the 
world, and the diminishing of them the riches 
of the Gentiles ; how much more their fulness ! 
. . . . For if the casting away of them be the 


* Zech. viii. 18. 


t Zech. xiv. 4, 5, 9. 



PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT. 279 

reconciling of the world, what shall the receiv 
ing of them be, but life from the dead ? ” * 

He that testifieth these things saith, 

SuHELY I COME QUICKLY! AmEN, EYEN SO« 

Come, Loed Jesus! 


* Rom. xi. 12,15. 



APPENDIX. 















APPENDIX 


PAG/ 


Note I.—The Jewish Question in France. 285 

Note II.—Remnants of the Ten Tribes in Afghanistan 
and Arabia. 286 

Note III.—Objections to a Literal Interpretation of the 
Promises to Israel. 287 

Note IV.—The “Alliance Israelite Universelle”. 290 

Note V.—The Financial Position of the Jews. 292 

Note VI.—The Jews in Education.294 

Note VII.—The Jews and the Press.296 

Note VIII.—The Jews in Political Positions. 297 

Note IX. — The Comparative Ability of Jews and Eng¬ 
lishmen. 298 

Note X.—The Fertility of the Jewish Race. 300 

Note XI.—The Jews and Modern Socialism. 305 

Note XII.—The Colonization of Palestine. 306 

Note XIII.—The Chronology of the Jewish Prophecies.. 311 

Note XIV.—Jewish Movements toward Christianity.318 


( 283 ) 



























APPENDIX. 


NOTE I. Preface, p. iii. 

THE JEWISH QUESTION IN FRANCE. 

A remarkable illustration of the phenomenal in¬ 
terest which is taken in Jewish affairs has been fur¬ 
nished since the issue of the first edition of this 
book by the publication in Paris of La France Juive: 
Essai d'Histoire Contemporaine, by M. Edouard 
Drumont. Of this work, devoted to an exposition 
of the progress, position, and prospects of the Jews 
in France, almost 300,000 copies had been sold with¬ 
in a year from the date of its publication; and this, 
although a book of more than 1,200 12mo pages, sell¬ 
ing in paper cover for 7 francs. The author gives a 
truly astonishing picture of the power and influence 
of the Jews in France, and if any considerable part 
of his statements be true, one can well understand 
the sensation which the work has caused. M. Dru¬ 
mont writes in strong sympathy with the Romish 
Church, and his feeling against the Jews, who, 
in his opinion, are bringing France to moral and 
financial ruin, is so intense that we cannot wonder 
at the bitterness with which the book has been 
noticed, where not ignored, by the Jewish press. 
We have not observed, however, that his Jewush 
critics contradict his statements as to the extent of 
Jewish influence, although, quite naturally, they 
take a very different view of the situation. 

(285) 







286 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE II. Pages 107, 108. 

REMNANTS OF THE TEN TRIBES IN AFGHANISTAN AND 

ARABIA. 

The belief of the Afghans in their Israelitish de¬ 
scent found expression in a proclamation issued by 
the Amir of Afghanistan in 1882, in which he ad¬ 
dressed his people in the following words: “ O, my 
tribesmen, it is known to you that you are a noble 
race, and that your pedigree is traced from Jacob 
the prophet.” This is followed by a resume of their 
history from the Exodus down to their last defeat 
by British arms. 

There is reason to believe that in Arabia also are 
to be found remnants of the ten tribes. In the 
Hejaz, for example, are found Israelites who profess 
to be members of the tribes of Grad and Naphtali. 
The case of the Rechabites also deserves mention. 
In the opinion of eminent scholars this family be¬ 
longed to the ten tribes. It seems a striking fulfil¬ 
ment of Jeremiah xxxv. 19, that near Mecca, in 
Arabia, are found to this day an Israelitish tribe 
bearing this name, and claiming lineal descent from 
Jonadab. Mr. Poole, in Smith’s Dictionary of the 
Bible, quotes from the traveller Wolff a conversa¬ 
tion which he had with a certain man, Moussa, of 
this tribe. “I asked him,” he said, “whose de¬ 
scendant are you?” Moussa answered, “Come, 
and I will show you,” and read from an Arabic 
Bible, Jer. xxxv. 5-11. He then went on, “Come, 
and you will find us 60,000 in number. You see 
the words of the prophet are fulfilled.” Wolff adds 




APPENDIX. 


287 

that with these Rechabite Arabs also live Arabs of 
the tribe of Dan.* 


NOTE III. Pages 102-134. 

OBJECTIONS TO A LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE 
PROMISES TO ISRAEL. 

To the objections referred to in Chap, iii., pp. 102- 
134, a reviewer in the N. Y. Evangelist f adds the 
following: that “If the author’s position be true, 
centuries of fidelity are to result in forfeiture of 
birthright, while centuries of apostasy are to be re¬ 
warded with the birthright privileges. Then it is a 
great mistake that we are not all Jews.” 

Of these connected propositions, the first may be 
understood in either of two ways, and whichever be 
taken, it is not true. If the reference is to the 
Christian Church as an external organization, then 
it is not true that she has exhibited “centuries of 
fidelity.” The largest part of Christendom is compre¬ 
hended in the communions of the Roman, Greek, 
and other Oriental churches, whose apostasy lias 
been scarcely less complete than that of Israel when 
smitten with the wrath of God. As for Protestant 
churches, taking the history of the denominations 
collectively, is it possible that any spiritually-minded 
person, who will reflect but a little, will say that 
their record, judged by the Word of God, witnesses 


* Vid. op. cit. vol. ii.; article “ Rechabites.” Conder also, 
in Tent Life in Palestine, refers to this tribe. 

t July 19, 18S3. 










288 


APPENDIX. 


to “centuries of fidelity”? We do not deny that 
there have been exceptions in individual bodies of 
believers, and at particular times, when Christ has 
been honored by a fidelity which we may well seek 
to imitate. But has Protestant Christendom, collect¬ 
ively , of whatever name, Anglican, Lutheran, Pres¬ 
byterian, or other, been marked by “centuries of 
fidelity”? 

If, however, the writer refers not to the visible 
church, but the collective body of true believers, 
then the proposition is equally untrue, in a different 
way. For neither does Scripture teach, nor does the 
argument of this book invoi ve the inference that the 
national calling and future restoration of the Jew¬ 
ish nation carries with it the exclusion of faithful 
Gentile believers from their birthright privileges in 
the kingdom of God. The reviewer will be unable 
to name a literalist interpreter who maintains such 
a position. The argument of the Apostle Paul (Rom. 
xi. 12, 15) is explicit to the contrary. Israel shall 
assuredly be restored and saved, and also the elect 
from among the Gentiles in this dispensation shall 
inherit the kingdom in the resurrection from the 
dead. Surely there is no contradiction either in 
reason or in Scripture between these two proposi¬ 
tions. Regarding the review from which the above 
citation is made, we may note the very curious and 
suggestive fact that in all the writer's attempted ref¬ 
utation of the argument of this book—an argument 
which, whatever its value, is based wholly on the 
statements of the Holy Scripture—he never, in more 
than two folio columns, cites a word of Scripture, or 
attempts to show that even one of the many pas¬ 
sages on which the argument is rested, judged by the 


APPENDIX. 


289 

laws of grammatical and historical exegesis, is inter¬ 
preted erroneously! 

In default of exegetical argument, the reviewer 
resorts to other arguments of a very singular kind. 
Thus, the argument for the fulfilment of prophecy 
in the modern emancipation of the Jews, he seeks to 
set aside by reminding us that “ this elevation of the 
Jews was a mere incident in the progress of human¬ 
ity.” That the prophets, taken according to the let¬ 
ter of their predictions, do foretell such a deliverance 
of the nation from Gentile oppression in the latter 
times, is not denied, as indeed it could not be; nor, 
in this case, does the critic venture to deny the fact 
of the emancipation. Yet when it is urged, not un¬ 
naturally, that here is clearly a case of prediction 
and fulfilment, this is the only answer,—that the 
emancipation has been the natural result of the prog¬ 
ress of the race! But how does this touch the truth 
of the proposition that in this emancipation we have 
a case of manifest prediction and fulfilment ? If the 
prophets had anywhere declared that the emancipa¬ 
tion, when it should occur, would not be the result 
of natural causes, but miraculous, the case had 
been different. But as a matter of fact this is no¬ 
where said. The fact is predicted; but the manner 
in which it should be brought about is not fore¬ 
told. 

In the same manner, the same reviewer seeks to 
disprove the argument from the revival of the Jew¬ 
ish national consciousness, as shown in the tendency 
to external organization. He tells us, “It is really 
only an incident in the organization of all the forces 
of modern society in various forms for the accomplish¬ 
ment of great and world-wide undertakings.” True 




290 


APPENDIX. 


enough, no doubt it is that in this revival of Jewish 
nationality we have one manifestation of a world¬ 
wide movement; but again we ask, have the proph¬ 
ets who predict this national revival ever said that 
it should he otherwise ? And if not, how does this 
fact touch the question whether there is not here 
also an instance of prediction and fulfilment ? A 
modern essayist has well remarked it as a singular 
fact that so long as the method of any phenomenon 
is hidden from men, they commonly maintain that 
it must have been brought about by God; but so 
soon as the method is discovered, they immediately 
deny that God could have had anything to do with 
it. Of the truth of this remark the reviewer in the 
Evangelist affords a very striking illustration. 


NOTE IV. Page 156. 

THE “ALLIANCE ISRAELITE UNIVERSELLE.” 

The Alliance Israelite Universelle is governed by 
a Central Committee resident in Paris, which main¬ 
tains correspondence with national and local com¬ 
mittees in different countries, and with other Jewish 
associations which, in one way or another, contrib¬ 
ute to the work of the Alliance. Such organizations 
are, for example, the Anglo-Jewish Association, the 
Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Bnai 
Brith, and others of less note. In 1866 the Alliance 
numbered 4,610 members, and its income was 35,410 
francs; in 1886 the membership had increased to 
32,231, and its aggregate subscriptions amounted 



APPENDIX. 


291 


to 259,73G francs.* The objects of the Alliance are 
sought, in the first place, by communications with 
different governments, ambassadors, and consuls, 
and, not least, by the use of the Liberal Press. To its 
efforts, in great part, is to be attributed the improve¬ 
ment of the condition of the Jews in recent years m 
many countries—as in Bulgaria, Servia, Algeria, 
Tunis, and Persia. It made its power felt in 1878 in 
the Berlin Conference, in securing for the Jews in 
Roumania the rights which were guaranteed in the 
treaty then ratified—rights which, unhappily, Rou- 
mania has thus far, in defiance of the treaty, refused 
to concede. 

In the second place, the Alliance seeks the im¬ 
provement of the Jewish nation by educational 
work, in lands and countries where the race is the 
most degraded. In various countries—in Asia, 
Africa, and Eastern Europe — this work was re¬ 
cently represented by 8,629 pupils in 56 schools. 
Besides such elementary schools as these, the Al¬ 
liance has established an agricultural school at Jaffa, 
for training colonists in Palestine in the cultivation 
of the land; also a preparatory school for teachers 
in Paris, and various schools for apprentices. 

From 1868 until his death in 1880 the late M. 
Cremieux, some time member of the French Cabi¬ 
net, was the President of the Alliance, which he re¬ 
garded, to use his own words, as “ the most fruitful 
institution of modern times.” 

* M. Drumont, in the 124th edition of La France Juive , 
Tom. ii., p. 5S, gives the “ostensible income ” of the Alliance 
at 1,000,000 francs. If this statement be correct, it shows a 
very rapid increase since the year for which the above figures 
are given. 



292 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE V. Pages 157-166. 

THE FINANCIAL POSITION OF THE JEWS. 

Even in France, where the Jews are far less nu¬ 
merous in proportion to the population than in Cen¬ 
tral and Eastern Europe, the Jews hold the same 
exceptional position in finance. Much of Drumont’s 
remarkable book is devoted to this matter. He com¬ 
plains that “the only person who has profited by 
the Revolution is the Jew; all comes from the Jew; 
all returns to the Jew again.” He declares that the 
Jew may be described as having made “ a veritable 
conquest ” of France; that in France one may see 
to-day £ ‘ a whole people toiling for another people 
who appropriate to themselves, by a vast system of 
financial expropriation, the benefit of others’ labor.” * 
As one of many illustrations given, may be instanced 
the case of the Honduras loan negotiated a few years 
ago, of which, it was charged by Sobrigues in the 
French Chambers (Feb. 1, 1881), that out of 157,- 
000,000 francs received by the Jewish capitalists from 
subscribers to the loan, Honduras had received not 
over 17,000,000! M. Drumont states that the Hon¬ 
duras Government ‘ ‘ has always affirmed that it has 
received absolutely nothing! ”f He represents the 
railways of France, as of Russia, as being chiefly 
under Jewish control. 

The commanding position of the Jews in finance 
and commerce is also becoming matter of remark in 

* La France Juive , p. ii. 

t lb., pp. iv., v. The speech of M. Sobrigues in the Cham¬ 
bers has been published under the title, “ Veritds que chacun 
pense et que nul Nose dire.” 



APPENDIX. 


293 


the United States. The Jewish Chronicle quotes 
the following from a correspondent of the Boston 
Herald, regarding the position of the Jews in busi¬ 
ness in New York City: 

“ Considering the small number of Jews in New York—only 
60,000*—in comparison with the number of Christians, their 
success in the business world is simply phenomenal. There 
are millions upon millions of Jewish capital invested here in 
the wholesale trade. In fact, the business in many lines of 
trade is nearly monopolized by Jewish firms. I started from 
Union Square, the other morning, and walked down Broad¬ 
way to Wall Street, .... reading signs. I counted no less than 
650 upon which Jewish names were painted. These names rep¬ 
resented almost every kind of wholesale and jobbing trade 
located on the great artery. I also found many retailers of 
Jewish nationality. In one block I found only one Christian 
firm. Turning Wall Street, I found the same evidences of 
Jewish prosperity, only in a lesser degree, among bankers and 
brokers. Two of the largest banking-houses in the country, 
J. & J. W. Seiigman, and Kuhn, Loeb & Co., are distinctively 
Jewish. In the Stock Exchange are the Henriques Bros., 
Wormser, Marx, and a host of others, all of whom stand high. 
In Maiden Lane and John Street, the centre of the wholesale 
and retail jobbing jewelry trade of the country, the name of 
the Hebrew is found right and left. A round $50,000,000 of 
capital is employed by the Jews in this trade alone, and with 
it they transact fully £3 per cent, of the business done in it. 

“ West of Broadway, in Brcome, Mercer, White, Leonard, 
Greene, Grand, and other streets, comprising the great dry- 
goods and clothing districts, is a modern Jerusalem. Seventy 
per cent, of the entire wholesale clothing trade is done by 
Jews, who employ a capital of $50,000,000. In clothiers’ trim¬ 
mings the Jews have $10,000,000 invested. Ninety-five per 
cent, of the ladies’ cloaks and suits sold throughout the coun¬ 
try come from New York Hebrew houses, who annually turn 


* The Jewish Chronicle remarks that the number of Jews in 
New York is nearer 80,000 than 60,000. 



294 


APPENDIX. 


and return 156,000,000 of capital. In the fur-trade 50 per 
cent, of the firms are Jewish.The Hebrew controls exclu¬ 

sively the manufacture of caps, and on about 40 per cent, of 
the hats made he figures his profits. In the manufacture of 
silks and ribbons the Jew is at home. His capital here 
amounts to $25,000,000, and of the business in this line 
he transacts 60 per cent. He is also active in the tobacco, sugar, 
and wholesale liquor traffic, holding large interests in each. 
Strange to say, he is never found in the retail liquor business. 
. . . . There is not a bar in Gotham, I am told, presided over 
by a Hebrew.” 

Similar facts are reported from Chicago, San 
Francisco, Pittsburgh, and other large cities in the 
United States. 


NOTE VI. Pages 166-172. 

THE JEWS IN EDUCATION. 

Recent official statistics of Prussia show the pro¬ 
portion of illiterates, unable either to read or write, 
to be much smaller among the Jews than among 
Christians. The following table shows the propor¬ 
tion of such for each class of the population in 1875: 



Men. 

Women. 

Catholics. 

. 15.1 

21.8 

Protestants. 

. 6.6 

11.4 

Jews. 

. 3.9 

5.8 


To the educational statistics given on pages 167- 
173, may be added the following from later authori¬ 
ties, all distinctly indicating the same pre-eminence 
of the Jews, as compared with their Christian neigh¬ 
bors, in the matter of education. According to the 
census of Prussia on Dec. 1, 1884, out of a total of 
42,726 in the higher girls’ schools, 5,874, or nearly 







APPENDIX. 


295 


14 per cent., were Jewesses. But even in Berlin, 
where the Jews are most numerous, they are but 
5 per cent, of the population. In Hungary, in 1884, 
there were 512 Jewish schools, and 979 Jewish teach¬ 
ers. At the University of Buda-Pesth, in 1885, out 
of 3,375 students, 1,058, or 31 percent., were Jews; 
and at the Polytechnic School, 220, or 35 per cent., 
out of 621, were Jews. The proportion of Jews in 
the population is 4 per cent. Among 1,326 profes¬ 
sors in the German Universities, 98 are Jews, against 
70 in 1880. Of the 529 privat-docenten , 84 are Jews. 

In Bohemia, in the decade 1873-1883, the number 
of Christian students at the German gymnasia 
increased 35 per cent.; that of Jewish students, 
100 per cent. In the universities and superior 
schools of Italy, where the Jews number only about 
40,000, there were recently 37 Jewish professors. In 
Paris, in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes , of 
the stall of 35 professors, 7, or one-fifth, are Jews. 
These lecture on Philology, Comparative Grammar, 
Assyriology, Zend, Ethiopic, Himyaritic, and Arabic 
languages, and comprise the eminent names of 
Henri Weil, Michel Breal, Joseph Derenbourg, 
Jules Oppert, James Darmsteter, Hartwig Deren¬ 
bourg, and Joseph Halevy. Of these, the first four 
are also Members of the Institute of France. 

With so large a proportion of Jews in the highest 
educational positions, is it matter of wonder that 
a spirit hostile to Christianity should increase more 
and more among the rising generation, wherever 
these come under such influence ? 


206 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE VII. Pages 173, 174. 

THE JEWS AND THE PRESS. 

To the facts regarding Jewish control of the press 
given on pp. 173, 174, may be added many others. 
Drumont affirms that ‘ ‘ almost the entire press .... 
in France ” is “in the hands of the Jews, or depends 
indirectly upon them.”* In Paris it is said that all 
the newspapers except Le Temps , the Protestant or¬ 
gan, are owned or controlled by Jews. This ex¬ 
plains the fact, at first sight so singular, that a book 
like Drumont’s La France Juive , so quickly reach¬ 
ing the extraordinary issue of nearly 300,000 copies, 
should have been almost wholly unnoticed by the 
French press. 

According to The Jewish Chronicle , this Jewish 
control of the press may be observed to a consider¬ 
able extent even in Russia, where the Jews as a class 
are so persecuted. The editor states that “in the 
Russian Empire the official journals, and even the 
official Government Messenger , if they are not act¬ 
ually edited by Jews, have on their respective staffs 
numerous Jewish publicists, who contribute the ma¬ 
jority of articles. The most striking instance is to 
be met with in the case of M. Katkoff’s influential 
newspaper, the Moscow Wiedomosii, which is loy¬ 
ally devoted to the Government. The chief editor 
of this journal, who for many years has been M. 
Katkoff’s right hand, is president of the Jewish 


* La France Juive: tom. i., p. xi. 



APPENDIX. 


297 


community in Moscow, and most of his collabora- 
teurs are likewise Jews.” * 


NOTE VIII. Pages 174-178. 

THE JEWS IN POLITICAL POSITIONS. 

One is constantly meeting with additional facts in¬ 
dicating the upward movement of the Jewish race 
to positions of political power and influence in 
Christendom. The Turin correspondent of The Jew¬ 
ish Chronicle , writing under date of Sept. 4, 1885, 
mentions the appointment of the Jew Giacomo Mal- 
vano to the management of the foreign political af¬ 
fairs of the Italian kingdom, and gives a brief ex¬ 
tract from the Jesuit organ Unita Caitolica as 
follows: 

“The management of affairs in the Capital of the Christian 
world is now in the hands of a Jew. To him diplomatists 
have recourse when they wish to discuss foreign affairs; to 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Nov. 11, 1885. Of M. Katlcoff and 
his paper, the author of the recent remarkable series of articles 
in The Fortnightly Review on “The Present Position of Euro¬ 
pean Politics,” uses the following language : “ The power of 
Russia is wielded by a single man, or shall I say by two—the 
Emperor, and the Moscow newspaper Emperor, Katkoff. . . . . 
In Ru&sia there are only two men who count—but the second 
.... counts in a double way, both as an individual of ability 
and as the editor of a newspaper, which, in a sense, may be 
described as the most powerful in the world, because it is all- 
powerful, or nearly all-powerful, in one great empire. The 
Russian press is only powerful through Katkoff’s power.” 
See The Fortnigljln Review , Jan., 1887, p. 18; and March, 1887, 
p. 328. Since this was put to press, Katkoff has died. 




298 


APPENDIX. 


bim are presented the Moorish ambassadors ; to him they ren¬ 
der homage as the representative of the king; . . . . and it is 
he alone who guarantees to the Pope and the Catholic Church 
their liberty and independence. All international affairs which 
affect the present condition of the Vicar of Christ are arranged 
by Signor Malvano, who is of the Jewish religion. Finally, 
the Capital of the Catholic world itself is in the hands of a 
Jew. The Jew’s are masters in Rome; the Pope is one of 
their subjects ; a Jew from Turin commands in Rome ! ” 

In Hungary a recent reform bill provides for tlie 
creation of two Jewish peers, to be life members of 
the House of Lords. In France, in 1886, a Jew, M. 
Millaud, took his seat in the Cabinet, as Minister of 
Public Works. His predecessor, M. David Raynal, 
was of the same race. In the French army, in 1821, 
there was one Jewish general, one chief of battalion, 
and three captains. In 1883, there were serving in 
the army no less than 134 Jews of the rank of cap¬ 
tain and upward, distributed as follows: 5 generals, 
6 colonels, 9 majors, 25 chiefs of battalions, and 90 
captains. Among officers of lower rank than cap¬ 
tain, there were 89 lieutenants and 104 sub-lieuten¬ 
ants, Jews.* Even in Russia there are three Jewish 
officials, with the rank of General, in the Ministry 
of War. The United States are represented at the 
Sublime Porte by a Jew. 


NOTE IX. Pages 157-174. 

THE COMPARATIVE INTELLECTUAL ABILITY OF JEWS 

AND ENGLISHMEN. 

At a meeting of the British Association in Aber¬ 
deen, in 1885, a paper was read by a Mr. Joseph 

* The Jewish Chronicle , June 12, 1885. A sixth Jew, M. 
Adolphe Kinstin, was promoted to the grade of general iu the 
French atm}’ iu the same yoar. 




APPENDIX. 


299 

Jacobs, B.A., “ On a Comparative Estimate of Jew¬ 
ish Ability,” which illustrates in a striking manner 
the statements of chapter iv. The following state¬ 
ment of his method and results is abridged from The 
Jewish Chronicle: * 

“ The author attempted to determine the relative rank of 
Jewish intellect and ability as compared with English, by an 
investigation running parallel to that of Mr. F. Galton in his 
Hereditary Genius. By an application of the law of error to 
data collected from dictionaries of contemporary biography, 
Mr. Galton had been able to determine how r many of each of 
sixteen classes of intellect would be found among a million 
Englishmen over 50 years old. The three highest classes were 
formed of a selection of those who have their names inserted 
in Cooper’s Men of the Time , and would include 248, among 
whom one would be ‘illustrious,’ fourteen ‘eminent,’ and 
the remainder ‘distinguished’ men of calibre equal to that of 
an English judge. Mr. Jacobs had found by two independent 
methods that just over a million Jews hud reached the age of 
fifty between 1785 and 1885; and if their ability were equal to 
that of Englishmen they would show the same number of 
‘distinguished,’ ‘eminent,’ and ‘illustrious’ men. He had 
collected 335 names of Jewish celebrities from the dictionaries 
of biography, of which he rejected 166 as being of lower than 
third-class rank—more than Mr. Galton had rejected in his 
investigation. As the result he found four ‘illustrious’ Jews 
instead of one (Beaconsfield, Heine, F. Lasalle, and Felix 
Mendelssohn); and instead of fourteen ‘ eminent,’ he classed 
twenty-three (Auerbach, Benfey, L. Borne, A. Cremieux, 
Halevy, Sir W. Herschell, Jacobi, Mark, A. Geiger, Meyerbeer, 
Bernhardt, Neander, Sir Geo. Jessel, Sir F. C. Palgrave, Ra¬ 
chel, Ricardo, Jules Simon, Sylvester, Steinschneider, Zunz, 
E. Gans, Lasker, S. Maimun). Curiously, however, the pro¬ 
portion in the third class was smaller than among the same 
number of Englishmen ; a fact for which he very reasonably 
accounts by the influence of repression and persecution, to 
which only those of the highest order of power would rise 


# Issue of Sept. 18, 1885. 



300 


APPENDIX . 


superior. This was continued by the fact that Russia, in¬ 
stead of giving her proper proportion of the number, 200, gave 
only eight. Leaving Russia out of the account, the third class 
of intellect was about twice as numerous as among the same 
number of Englishmen. 

“An interesting table was also given, showing the relative 
proportion of those of eminent attainments in various depart¬ 
ments. No Jews were distinguished as agriculturists, engrav¬ 
ers, or sailors; fewer Jews reached eminence as authors, 
divines, engineers, soldiers, statesmen, or travellers. The pro¬ 
portion of eminent Jews was the same as of Englishmen, for an¬ 
tiquarians, architects, lawyers, artists, biologists, economists, 
scientists, and sculptors, while Jews had more actors, doc¬ 
tors, merchants, metaphysicians, philologists, and musicians. 
Mathematics was shown to be the chief science in which 
Jews are eminent, as evidenced by the names of Sylvester, 
Jacobi, Cromec-ker, and Cremona. In music, six times as 
many Jews as Englishmen reached eminence ; ‘ almost all the 
best names in English music, Benedict, Costa, Joachim, Ru- 
benstein, Sullivan, being Jewish.’ The eminence of Jews in 
philology was even more conspicuous, as witness the names 
of Oppert, Benfey, Bernays, Steinthal, Lazarus, Friedliinder, 
Weil, D. Sanders, (the German Littre), and Ollendorff, ‘who 
has taught more people language than any other man.’ ” 


NOTE X. Pages 178-183. 

ON THE FERTILITY OF THE JEWISH RACE. 

The representations made in this work as to the 
rapid increase of the Jews in our time, are generally 
admitted to be correct. The Medical Times and 
Gazette states, as a summary of the facts, that ‘ ‘ in 
general, in Europe, the increase of Catholics, Protest¬ 
ants, and Jews, compared with each other, is as one, 
two, three; but in France and Austria the increase 



APPENDIX. 301 

of Jews is four and seven times greater than that ot 
Catholics.” 

It may be admitted, no doubt, that in the case of 
particular localities, the increase may in part he due 
to migrations of the Jewish population; but this 
will not account for the whole of the facts, nor 
affect the general truth of the statement made be¬ 
fore the Anthropological Society. 

A single reviewer, in the N. Y. Evangelist , has 
ventured to meet our statement of facts regarding 
the fertility of the Jews with a direct denial, assert¬ 
ing that “ the Jews are prolific, but not more than 
the Irish and Germans of the lower classes.” Of this 
assertion he gives no proof, nor does he attempt to 
show that Herzog's Encyclopddie, the Frankfort 
Civilstands Register , or any of the other high au¬ 
thorities cited by the author as certifying to the con¬ 
trary, were either wrongly quoted or had themselves 
misrepresented facts. Unwilling to receive the pre¬ 
dictions of the prophets on this subject as meaning 
what they say, or accept the statements of compe¬ 
tent authorities as to the facts, he then indulges in 
a little prophecy himself, to the effect that he appre¬ 
hends that “with the advance of the Jews in re¬ 
spectability and culture ” they will become less pro¬ 
lific ! We can only reply that we cannot but still 
think it more likely that the prophets will prove to 
be rip-ht in this matter than the reviewer of the N. Y. 

o 

Evangelist , and presume that most of our readers 
will incline to the same opinion. 

The rapid increase of the Jews seems to be due 
chiefly to the following causes. In the first place, 
the Jews, as a rule, marry at an earlier age than the 
Christian people among whom they live. Statistics 


302 


APPENDIX. 


also show, as indicated above,* that a much larger 
proportion of the Jews live until middle life than of 
their Gentile neighbors. This is illustrated by the 
fact that, according to statistical returns, marriages of 
widows and widowers are much less frequent among 
the Jews than among Christians. As an example, 
may be taken the statistics for Pesth for the year 
1857, which show 66 per cent, of persons over 50 
with husband or wife still alive, against 51 per cent, 
among Catholics and 53 among Protestants. Other 
European cities show similar figures. Another factor 
contributing to the greater longevity, and, conse¬ 
quently, more rapid numerical increase among the 
Jews, appears to be found in the high standard of 
social purity among them, and a comparative freedom 
from the more destructive vices of our modern civil¬ 
ization. To this social purity, not to speak of other 
influences, early marriage would naturally contrib¬ 
ute. The words of The Medical Times and Gazette 
are again to the point here. We are told that the 
greater increase of the Jewish population “does 
not depend upon the greater number of births 
among the Jews, which is usually inferior to that of 
Catholics and Protestants,! but the number of ille- 


* Pp. 180, 181. 

t It should be said that there is reason to believe that this 
inferiority is only apparent. This seems to have been clearly 
proved by Mr. Joseph Jacobs, B.A.,in an able paper on “ Jew¬ 
ish Vital Statistics.” He says: “The smaller number of 
deaths under 5 years among the Jews, causes the non-nubile 
portion of the population to be greater among them than 
among Christiaus, and makes any percentage less when reck¬ 
oned on the whole population than it would be if reckoned 
upon the number of adults, by a much greater degree 



APPENDIX. 


303 


gitimate births is very much less among 1 the Jews 
than among the other inhabitants; * * and as the mor¬ 
tality of infants is especially noteworthy in the cate¬ 
gory of illegitimate children, the result is that 
although the Jews have fewer infants than the 
Catholics and Protestants, they preserve a greater 
number of them.” f 

To these causes of Jewish longevity should proba¬ 
bly be added the observance of the dietetic laws of 
the Talmud, based upon the principles given in the 
Pentateuch. That the laws in Leviticus touching 
lawful and forbidden food, are in accord with the 
laws of nature and have an important bearing upon 


than is generally the case.” Giving the statistics which sup¬ 
port this statement—similar to those given in chap. iv.—he 
concludes, with reason, that the smaller birth-rate is probably 
‘‘only apparent, and would turn into a higher rate if applied 
only to adults.” See article cited, Tlie Jewish Chronicle , Jan. 
9, 1885. 

* On an average, in Europe, the proportion of illegitimate 
children among Protestants is 1 in 10 ; among Jews, 1 in 47. 
So Boudin : Traite de Geoc/raph. et de Statist, medicates , Tom. 
ii., p. 137 ff. Paris, 1857; cited by Sclileiden in Wester- 
mann’s lUustririe Deutsche A/onalsheJ'te, Nos. 241, 242; article, 
“ Die Bedeutung der Juden, u. s. w.,” p. 52. 

t In illustration, to the figures given above, pp. 180,181, may 
be added the following for more recent years : In 1881, in 
Buda-Pestb, while only 34 per cent, of the Christian popula¬ 
tion was under 20, of the Jewish population the number un¬ 
der 20 was 45 per cent, of the whole. In Vienna, in 1869, the 
Jewish population under 26 was 46 per cent, of the whole, the 
Christiau population under this limit only 35. The figures 
are given b 3 r Mr. Joseph Jacobs, B. A., in the above-mentioned 
article on “ Jewish Vital Statistics,” from Korosi: Die Haupt- 
stadt Buda-Festh, and Jeitteles : Cultus- Gemeinde. 



304 


APPENDIX. 


physical health, the best intelligence of our clay is 
most ready to admit. Recent researches, especially, 
touching the communicability of disease from ani¬ 
mals to man, have great significance in this connec¬ 
tion. The Jewish law, in force in our day, which 
enforces a sanitary inspection of cattle slaughtered, 
forbidding to eat the flesh till it has been by compe¬ 
tent authority pronounced 11 kosher,” cannot but 
have a most salutary effect upon the health of the 
community. It has been truly said that ‘ ‘ the high¬ 
est hygienic science may find its principles in the 
Pentateuch.” * 

Before leaving this subject, the striking fact de¬ 
serves to be noted that marriages between Jews and 
Christians are less fruitful in offspring than mar¬ 
riages purely Christian or Jewish.! Whatever may 
be the cause of this, it is certainly very suggestive 
that the divinely-promised blessing of national fruit¬ 
fulness should still, in the nineteenth century, be 
conditioned by the strict maintenance of the national 
separation from the Gentiles. 


* See, on this subject, The Speaker's Commentary on the 
Book of Leviticus, Note on chap. xi. 3-30. 

t Ou this point Mr. Jacobs, in the article above cited, fur¬ 
nishes such statistics as the following: “Von Fircks has 
given the results of investigations into 1,673 (mixed) mar¬ 
riages in Prussia between 1875 and 1881, and finds that while 
the average number of children to a Protestant marriage is 
4.3, to a Catholic 5.2, to a Jewish marriage 4.4, marriages 
between Jews and Christians only produce on an average 1.7 
(Zeit. Preuss. St at., 1883, p. 239). Similarly in Bavaria, 1876-’80, 
while Jewish marriages have a fertility of 4.7, mixed marriages 
havo only 1.1 (Zeit. Bay. Stat., pp. 188, 213).” 



APPENDIX. 


305 


NOTE XI. Pages 199-204. 

THE JEWS AND MODERN SOCIALISM. 

In confirmation of the statements made in chap, 
iv. as to the relation of the Jews to modem Social¬ 
ism, may be cited the words of that most competent 
authority on economic questions, the eminent Bel¬ 
gian economist, M. Emile de Laveleye, who in his 
book, Le Socialisme Contemporaine , p. 49, has 
used the following language: 

“The Jews have been nearly everywhere the initiators or 
the propagators of Socialism. The reason is plain. Socialism 
is an energetic protest against the iniquitous basis of the act¬ 
ual order of things, and an ardent aspiration towards a better 
system, where justice would reign supreme. Now this is pre¬ 
cisely the foundation of the Judaism of Job and the prophets, 
and of that aspiration towards a Messiah whence Christianity 

arose.The Jew is not resigned like the Christian. To 

the Christian, poverty and humility are virtues, while to the 
Jew they are misfortunes to be avoided. Abuse and violence, 
which find the Christian calm, enrage the Jew. Hence it is 
that the Israelite element has in our time become an influence 
of reform and progress in all countries where it is to be found. 
The Saint-Simonism and the industrial and financial mysticism 
of our days are, in part, at least, derived from it. In the rev¬ 
olutionary movements of France the Jewish element played 
au important part. In the Jewish conception of the world, it 
is here below that the greatest possible amount of justice 
should be realized. From which it follows that present social 
arrangements should at all hazards be radically changed.”* 

Whatever may be thought of this learned publi¬ 
cist’s explanation of the matter, it will be granted by 
all unprejudiced persons that his testimony as to the 
fact, is that of an exceptionally competent observer 
of modern history. 

* Translated in The Jewish Chronicle , J une 0, 1885. 




306 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE XII. Pages 231-246. 

ON THE COLONIZATION OF PALESTINE. 

The history of events hearing on the Jewish col¬ 
onization of Palestine since the first publication of 
this work, is briefly as follows. 

In Germany, the anti-Semitic movement has 
abated, and, practically, the Jews appear to have 
won a triumph. The same may be said also of 
Austria-Hungary. In Russia, the activity of perse¬ 
cution has diminished, but the condition of the Jews 
has not materially improved. Oppressive restric¬ 
tions upon them in regard to residence, education 
and occupations, are still the order of the day. Only 
last year, a Jewish member of the British Parliament 
was ordered to leave St. Petersburgh on the sole 
ground that he was a Jew. As to the Jews resi¬ 
dent in the empire, the St. Petersburgh correspondent 
of The Jewish Chronicle writes: “Our condition is 
becoming worse day by day, and our unbounded 
misery is increasing to alarming proportions.” * 

In Roumania, the condition of the Jews has grown 
so bad that last year the Government of Great Brit¬ 
ain, together with those of other European powers, 
made formal representation to the Government of 
Roumania, pressing upon it the necessity of grant¬ 
ing to the Jews those equal rights which, by the 
Treaty of Berlin (1878), were made the condition of 
Roumanian independence. None the less, however, 
the Roumanian Jews are harassed by oppressive leg¬ 
islation and merciless expulsions, and their social 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Aug. 13, 1886. 



APPENDIX. 


307 


position would seem to be intolerable. All the 
numerous special schools for learning 1 trades, etc., 
are closed to the Jews by law. While the common 
public schools are nominally open to them, then* 
treatment, if they attend, is such that practically they 
are excluded from these also. The result of this 
treatment, when the poverty of the Roumanian 
Jews is considered, will plainly be such as the 
Bucharest correspondent of The Jewish Chronicle 
predicts: that “in a few years there will be scarce¬ 
ly any Jews in Roumania, able to earn their 
living by manual labor.” * That this means ex¬ 
tensive emigration is plain. It is no wonder that 
the Palestine colonization movement finds favor in 
Roumania. 

As the result of the great Mansion House meet¬ 
ing of 1882 in London,! in behalf of the oppressed 
Jews of Russia, a fund was raised of about £119,000. 
Of this sum, £85,000 were expended in aiding a 
large number of Russian Jews to emigrate, and 
when the violence of persecution had somewhat 
abated, in repatriating about 4,000 more. Feeling 
it unwise during the present attitude of the Turk¬ 
ish Government to press forward Jewish emigra¬ 
tion to Palestine, the Committee, keeping the 
Jewish future in view, has chiefly aided, and is 
still aiding, those who wish to acquire a knowledge 
of agriculture, by founding agricultural colonies 
elsewhere, providing in England for a Jewish 


* The Jewish Chronicle , Oct. 10, 1886. 
t See pp. 238, 230, sup. 


1 



308 


APPENDIX. 


school of agriculture, in all which they report “sat¬ 
isfactory” results.* 

Meantime the orthodox Jews of Eastern Europe, 
nothing disheartened by Turkish opposition, con¬ 
tinue efforts directed toward the colonization of 
Palestine. In Russia alone, between forty and fifty 
‘ ‘ Palestine Colonization Societies ” have been formed 
in the past four or five years, besides others in Rou- 
mania.f Of these, among the most notable is an 
organization formed at Kattowitz in Nov., 1884, 
under the name of “The Montefiore Association 
for the Promotion of Agriculture among the Jews, 
with reference to assisting Jewish Colonists in 
Palestine.” The object of the Association, how¬ 
ever, would seem to be more comprehensive than 
even this lengthy title would indicate; for among 
the duties with which the Central Committee is 
charged, we find named ‘ ‘ endeavors to obtain the 
sanction of the Porte for the unrestricted settle¬ 
ment of Jews in Palestine.”! By the latter part 
of 1885, this Association had reached a membership 
of 10,000, with an annual pledged income of 10,000 
roubles. Over fifty branch associations had been 
formed.§ 

Nor have these recent colonizing efforts, despite 
Turkish opposition, been wholly unfruitful. Ac¬ 
cording to a letter of Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, dated 
Haifa, June 7, 1885, there were at that time nine 


* “ Report of the Mansion House Fund,” published in The 

Jevjish Chronirte, Juty 9, 1886. 

t The Jevnsh Chronicle, March 20, 1885. 

X Dec. 6, 18S4. § lb., March 20, 1885. 



APPENDIX. 


309 


Jewish colonies more or less successfully established 
in Palestine. * His testimony supports the statement 
of the editor of The Jewish Chronicle , that the dif¬ 
ficulties of ‘ ‘ the insufficient tenure afforded by the 
Turkish Government, and that of earning a living 
in the Holy Land ” ‘ ‘ have been got over. ” f He tells 
us that while these recent Jewish colonists in Pales¬ 
tine have met “difficulties which would have discour¬ 
aged people animated by no higher sentiment than 
that of merely finding a living,”J experience has now 
shown that ‘ ‘ so far as energy, industry, and aptitude 
for agricultural pursuits are concerned, .... with 
a fair chance Jews may make very good colonists, 
and are likely to succeed better in Palestine as agri¬ 
culturists than in America.” § Instead of the op¬ 
position which many expected would be shown to 
Jewish colonists by the Mohammedan fellaheen , 
Mr. Oliphant says that they have shown ‘ ‘ no aver¬ 
sion to the proprietorship of their land by Israelites, 
upon religious grounds. The only difficulty has 
lain in the division of labor and profit. ” || 

No leSs significant is it, that simultaneously with 
these incipient colonization movements, and in a 
more rapid degree, goes steadily forward the general 
improvement of the Holy Land. On this, besides 
many others, we have again the valuable testimony 
of Mr. Oliphant, who says: “ It is a remarkable fact 
that while every province in Turkey has been stead- 


* Haifa, or Life in Modern Palestine, p. 288. 
t The Jewish Chronicle , July 9, 1886. % Haifa , p. 288, 

§ lb., p. 286. 1 lb ., p. 13. 




310 


APPENDIX. 


ily retrograding' during' the last few years, Palestine 
alone has been rapidly developing in agricultural 
and material prosperity.” * Abundant proof of this 
statement is given by himself and other travellers. 
Within the past twenty years the price of build¬ 
ing sites about Jerusalem has risen fifty per cent., 
and is still increasing, while hi twenty years the 
population has doubled.! A later writer from Jeru¬ 
salem in The Jewish Chronicle says that about the 
Jaffa gate the price of building sites has increased 
fourfold in the last five years4 The population of 
Haifa has doubled in ten years, the value of exports 
and imports has largely increased, and land had in¬ 
creased threefold in value from 1878 to 1883.§ 

Almost every acre of the great plain of Esdraelon 
is in a high state of cultivation, and “presents one 
of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility 
which it is possible to conceive.” In 1882 the cost of 
transporting the Sursocks’l share of the wheat crop 
of this fertile plain to the seaport was $50,000. The 
Bedouin raids which made the fruits of labor so un¬ 
certain a few years ago throughout Eastern Pales¬ 
tine have become a thing of the past. IT Roads are 
being constructed in a land where till lately there 
were none. In Haifa, a few years ago, a cart had 
never been seen; but lately an omnibus was run¬ 
ning four or five times a day to Acre, and a good 
road had been finished to Nazareth,* * § ** A road is also 


* Haifa , pp. 60, 61. Also, see p. 289. 

t Haifa , pp. 309, 310. % The Jewish Chronicle, March 12,1886. 

§ Haifa , p. 61. | A wealthy banking firm of Beyrout. 

U Haifa, pp. 59, 60. ** lb., pp. 20, 21. 



APPENDIX. 


311 


in progress from Jerusalem to Hebron. Similar ac¬ 
counts reach us from other points. In 1883 a com¬ 
pany of Syrian capitalists obtained a concession from 
the Sultan for a railway from Acre to Damascus, and 
for placing steam tugs upon the Sea of Tiberias, and 
the route was surveyed. The concession lapsed 
“through difficulties which arose at the last mo¬ 
ment in the formation of the company,” but Mr. 
Oliphant adds that he has ‘ ‘ little doubt but that the 
work will be ultimately accomplished.” * 

Such then, very briefly, is the present state of 
things with regard to the Jewish nation and their 
land. The remark made by Dr. Moody Stuart in 
the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scot¬ 
land a few veam ago, is still as true as then: ‘ ‘ The 
modem world is at a loss what to do with the 
Jews, and the Jews are at a loss what to do with 
themselves.” Slowly the idea of restoring the peo¬ 
ple to the land, and the land to the people, is taking 
shape and form in the minds of increasing numbers 
both of Jews and Christians. The few years which 
have passed since chap. iv. of this book was written, 
have only served to confirm the argument upon 
this point as there presented. 


NOTE XIII. Pages 256-259. 

OF THE CHRONOLOGY OF ISRAEL’S ABASEMENT AND 

RESTORATION. 

It has long been the opinion of the leading Prot¬ 
estant expositors of prophecy of the “historical” or 


* 1 6., pp. 63-67. 






312 


APPENDIX. 


“continuist” school, such as Mede, Bp. Newton, 
Faber, Elliott, and many others, that both the abase* 
ment of Nebuchadnezzar and the period of its dura¬ 
tion, had a typical significance. It has been sup¬ 
posed that his abased condition, as the degraded 
head of Babylonian monarchy, typically set forth 
the wild-beast condition of Gentile monarchy during 
the whole period of the four beast-powers of chap, 
vii. It has also been the opinion of such that here 
and everywhere in the prophetic Scriptures a ‘ ‘ time, ” 
known to consist of 360 days, is to be understood, 
not as a calendar year, hut after the analogy of the 
Hebrew ecclesiastical system of weeks of years, 
wherein each day was one year. Thus it has been 
the judgment of such expositors that this period of 
Nebuchadnezzar’s symbolical abasement itself typi¬ 
cally denoted the duration of the wild-beast powers 
of Dan. vii., and by consequence the whole period of 
Israel’s subjection to Gentile domination. 

With this explanation, the reader will he able to 
understand, in a general way, the ground of those 
anticipations of modern expositors to which allu¬ 
sion is made on p. 256. For it is plain that if this 
“year-day” system of interpretation, and there¬ 
with this interpretation of the significance of the 
note of time in Dan. iv. be correct, then it would 
follow that 2,520 years from the time of Israel’s sub¬ 
jugation to the Gentiles we ought to witness a cor¬ 
responding elevation of the nation and deliverance 
from the Gentile yoke. Further, when we remem¬ 
ber that the subjection of Israel, was not a single 
event, but a gradual process occupying 180 years or 
more, it is naturally suggested that the deliverance 
of the nation may probably prove to be also a pro- 


APPENDIX. 


313 


cess of considerable length, covering a period which, 
if the above hypothesis be correct, should correspond 
to the period of Israel’s subjugation, after an inter¬ 
val of 2,520 years. The annexed table will be of 
interest as enabling the reader to judge for himself 
whether the facts of history so far have sustained 
the above hypotheses, and have corresponded to the 
anticipations based upon them. 


314 


APPENDIX. 


CHRONOLOGY OF ISRAEL’S SUBJUGATION TO GEN¬ 
TILE POWER. 


Initial 

Dates,— 


To which correspond after “ seven 
times” ( i . e., ex. Hyp. 2,520 years), 
the following 


Terminal 

Dates. 


770 

to 

760 


The beginning. In this decade, exact year un¬ 
known, Pal of Assyria exacts from Menahem, 
King of Israel, 1C00 talents. No captives were 
taken ; “He turned back and stayed not in the 
land” (2 Kings xv. 19, 20). 


A.n. 

1750 

to 

1760 


740 

to 


730 


Expedition of Tiglath Pileser ; beginning of Israel’s 
captivity (2 Kings xv. 29). Judah also made 
tributary to Assyria. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson 
supposes a first and second invasion, fixed ap¬ 
proximately 734 or 732. This decade, 740-730 
b.c., marks the first deportation of the ten tribes 


1780 

to 

1790 


728 

725 


721 


Third for fourth) Assyrian invasion. Hoshea, King 
of Israel made tributary ; then rebels, is taken 
prisoner by Shalmanezer. Then follows three 
years’ siege and downfall of Samaria; final de- 
portation of the ten tribes. 


1792 

1795 

1799 


700 

699 

698 

076 


From this time to 606 B.C., when the wars of Nebu* 
chadnezzar introduced the captivity of Judah, 
there was no signal catastrophe. The iuterval 
was marked on the one hand by the gradual 
spiritual and national decay of the two ti'ibes, 
relieved, but not arrested by the revival under 
Josiah, 623 b.c.; on the other, by the fall of the 
Assyrian monarchy, and the rise to supremacy 
of Babjdon, appointed of God to be the first of 
four great powers who should hold Israel in 
bondage. The period was thus one of compar¬ 
ative quiet, but of steady preparation for the 
great final catastrophe. A crisis, however, oc¬ 
curred in Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah, 2 
Kings xviii. xix., arrested by miracle the next 
year. Next followed the accession of Manasseh ; 
then the only grave crisis before 606, namely, 
the captivity of Manasseh under Esarhaddou. .. 


1820 

1821 

1822 

1824 













APPENDIX. 


315 


A.r>. | 

1750 


1753 

1754 

1755 


1781 

1783 

1784 
1787 


1788 

1791 

1797 

1799 


1806 

1807 

1809 

1813 

1814 

1815 


1822 

1828 

1835 


CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH EMANCIPATION. 


From this }’ear, Griitz (Geachichte der Juden , xi. Bd. S. 1) 
dates the modern revival of Jewish nationality ; so 
also historians generally. 

Jews made citizens in England ; the Act, however, was 
repealed the next year. 

The modern revival of life in Israel begins with the 
publications of Mendelssohn. In this decade, also, 
Voltaire, Rousseau, et al., began the propagation of 
the doctrine of “ the equal rights of men,” etc., which 
issued forty years later in the beginning of modern 
Jewish civil emancipation. 

Councillor Dohm’s publication on “the amendment of 
the political position of the Jews.” 

Mendelssohn publishes his translation of the Penta¬ 
teuch ; beginning of modern “Reformed Judaism.” 

Capitation tax on Jews abolished in France. 

Frederick William II. repeals oppressive edicts against 
the Jews. Academy of Metz convenes an assembly 
“to consider the best means of making the Jews 
more useful and happier citizens.” Abbe Gregoire’s 
Essay on the subject. 

Louis XVI. appoints a commiss'on “ to remodel on 
principles of justice all laws concerning the Jews.” 

Jews recognized as citizens of France. 

Jews recognized as citizens of Holland and Belgium. 

Napoleon issues a proclamation for the return of the 
Oriental Jews to Palestine, and the rebuilding of Je¬ 
rusalem. 

Napoleon summons the Great Sanhedrim to meet. Jews 
made citizens in Italy and Westphalia. 

Second convening of the Great Sanhedrim ; reorganiza¬ 
tion of the synagogue. 

Jews emancipated in Baden. 

Jews emancipated in Prussia; more fully than in 17S7, 
but not yet completely. 

Laws for amelioration of the condition of the Jews 
passed in Denmark. 

Fall of Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna pledges it¬ 
self to turn its attention to the amelioration of the 
condition of the Jews. The alarm sounded—“All 
Christendom, if this emancipation goes on, will be iu 
a generation or two in a state of dependence on the 
Jews.” 

Greece freed from the Turkish yoke : first great blow 
to the power holding the Hoi}' Land. 

Jews emancipated in Wurtemberg. 

A Russian Ukase permits the Jews, expelled in 1745, to 
live in Russia. 






B C. 

643 

641 

628 

625 

623 

610 

606 

598 

687 


APPENDIX. 


IONOLOGY OF JEWISH SUBJUGATION— Continued. 


The chief events in the remaining interval were as 
follows : 


A.D. 


Death of Manasseh and accession of Amon 


1877 


Accession of Josiah 


1879 


Jeremiah begins to prophesy nearness of end. 

Nabopolassar ascends throne of Babylon. 

Josiah’s great Passover. 2 Kings xxii. 3-xxiii. 23.. 
Jehoahaz succeeds Josiah ; is deposed by Pharaoh. 

Captivity of Jehoiakim by Nebuchadnezzar. 

“Al! Jerusalem carried awaj 7 captive”; Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar places Zedekiah on throne of Jndah. 
Completing act of the subjugation ; Jerusalem 
taken, temple burned, Zedekiah carried to Baby¬ 
lon. The sentence is heard: “Take off the 
crown: this shall be no more the same: I will 
overturn, overturn, overturn it; this also shall 
be no more, until He come whose right it is ; and 
I will give it Him.” Ezek. xxi. 26, 27. 


1892 

1895 

1897 

1910 

1914 

1922 

1933 











APPENDIX. 3 yj 

CHRONOLOGY OF JEWISH EMANCIPATION— Continued. 


A.r> 

1840 

1844 

1847 

1848 
1807 

1874 

1878 

1879 

1880 
1881 

1882 


Persecution of the Jews in Syria, Mission of the two 
Jews, Montcfiore and Cremieux, obtains 

A firman from the Sultan promising the Jews protec¬ 
tion. 

The Ghetto opened in Rome. King of Prussia declares 
the emancipation of the Jews “incompatible with the 
well-being of a Christian State.” 

Complete emancipation of the Jews in all Germany. 

The Sultan issues a firman, permitting Jews to own 
land in Palestine without becoming Turkish subjects. 
The law limiting to 300 the number of Jews allowed 
to live in Jerusalem revoked in the same year. 

Jews made subject to conscription in Russia ; conse¬ 
quent beginning of movement toward Palestine. 

Congress of Berlin stipulates for emancipation of the 
Jews in Bulgaria and Roumania, in response to a 
Jewish deputation to the Congress. 

Emancipation of the Jews decreed in Bulgaria and Rou¬ 
mania. 

Decree in Italy for demolition of the Ghetto, in Rome ; 
Palace of Justice to occupy the site. 

Outbreak of persecutions of Jews in Russia; anti-Sem¬ 
itic demonstrations in Germany, Austria, and else¬ 
where. 

Great Mansion House Meeting for aid of persecuted 
Jews. Formation in this and following years of 
numerous Palestine Colonization Societies in Russia, 
Roumania and elsewhere. 






318 


APPENDIX. 


It is of the utmost importance to insist here upon 
what has been too often forgotten, that no one of 
these various terminal dates can be shown to mark 
the year of the second advent of our Lord. While 
we are constrained to agree with those who under¬ 
stand our Lord and the prophets to place that glo¬ 
rious Appearing in close chronological connection 
with the cessation of Israel’s tribulation,* yet the 
Scriptures give us no certain intimation as to what 
precise point in Israel’s gradual restoration marks, 
in the Divine mind, the end of the tribulation. All 
the facts but serve to emphasize the twofold assur¬ 
ance of our Lord, namely; that, on the one hand, 
when we see certain things coming to pass, we may 
u know that He is nigh , even at the doors and, 
on the other hand, that “ Of that day and hour 
knoweth no one , not even the angels in heaven” f 


NOTE XIV. Page 250. 

OF JEWISH MOVEMENTS TOWARD CHRISTIANITY. 

In connection with the argument of chap, iv., 
reference may be made to another class of phenom¬ 
ena among the Jewish nation. Although the Scrip¬ 
tures seem to intimate that against ‘ ‘ the time of the 
end,” a large part of the Jewish nation will have 
been restored to Palestine in unbelief, | there are 

* See Mark xiii. 24, and parallels. f Mark xiii. 29, 32. 

t Such, for instance, are Ezek. xxxvi. 24, 25, and xxxvii. 
12,13, where, apparently, the restoration of the national life 
and the re-establishment in the land is placed before the out¬ 
pouring of the Spirit on the collective nation. 




APPBJVD/X. 


319 


other passages which seem to hint that among a por¬ 
tion of the nation there will be a preparatory work 
of grace, which shall herald the great restoration, 
and be a pledge, when it occurs, of the larger bless¬ 
ing soon to follow. An example of this we have in 
Ezek. xxxvi. 37, where, after the great prophecy to 
“the mountains of Israel,” we read, “Thus saith 
the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by 
the house of Israel, to do it for them.” 

So again, in the light of this and other Scriptures, 
many have believed that we have a hint of the same 
thing in what our Saviour in parable says concern¬ 
ing the budding of the fig-tree, as a sign of the near 
approach of His kingdom in the last days.* One at 
least cannot but be reminded of that “parable in 
action,” wrought by Him in the cursing of a fig-tree 
a few days before that Olivet discourse, wherein He 
symbolically set forth the doom of spiritual barren¬ 
ness which should fall upon the Jews because of 
their rejection of Him,—a doom fulfilled in the sight 
of all the world for now more than eighteen centu¬ 
ries. If the many expositors who have thus inter¬ 
preted the miracle and the parable of the fig-tree, as 
referring prophetically to the Jewish nation, have 
been in the right, then it is clear that the “budding” 
of the fig-tree would signify indications of returning 
spiritual life in the nation. 

The question thus becomes of special interest in 
connection with the argument of chap. iv., whether 
as yet in connection with these abundant and in¬ 
creasing signs of reawakening national life in Israel, 
there may be discovered, notwithstanding their gen- 


* Matt. xxiv. 32, and parallel*. 






320 


APPENDIX. 


eral hatred to the Gospel, any such special signs of 
a spiritual movement of the nation toward the Mes¬ 
siah. Not without significance in this connection, 
perhaps, is the work which is being done by various 
missionary societies among the Jews in different 
parts of the world. Although not great or imposing, 
measured by the number engaged in it, or the sums 
of money expended, yet this work, contrary to a 
common impression, has been very fruitful, in pro¬ 
portion to the means employed, in conversions of 
Jews to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. At a re¬ 
cent meeting in the interest of the British Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, 
one of their missionaries stated, as the result of in¬ 
vestigation of the facts, that while in all the world 
there were only 250 missionaries to the Jews, yet the 
number of Jewish converts to Christianity now 
numbered about 100,000. It should be noted, how¬ 
ever, that the converts of these various missionary 
laborers, as a general thing, have become members 
of the various Christian denominations, and in be¬ 
coming Christians, have broken the national con¬ 
nection, and so in that sense have ceased to be 
Jews. These conversions can hardly be said to have 
a national character and significance. 

Of a very different character are certain other re¬ 
cent movements toward Jesus as Messiah, which are 
purely Jewish. Of these the most notable thus far 
is that which began some five years ago with the 
conversion of a Jewish lawyer, Joseph Rabinowitz, 
of Kischineff, Bessarabia, Russia. This man, who 
already among his people was held in reputation as 
a man of special intelligence and love for his nation, 
during the Russian persecutions was led to organize 


APPENDIX. 


321 


a society for the promotion of agriculture among 
the Jews and the colonization of Palestine, as a 
means of escape from Russian tyranny. That he 
might see for himself the condition of the Holy 
Land, in 1882 he went to Palestine. Reaching Je¬ 
rusalem, he was profoundly saddened by the specta¬ 
cle of its desolation and subjection to the Gentile, 
and the abased condition of the Jewish inhabitants. 
There, on the site of the temple, stood a Moham¬ 
medan mosque. At the wailing-place before the 
wall, he saw his unhappy fellow-Jews driven about, 
the sport and jest of Arab girls, chased, as it were, 
by “the fallen leaf,” a striking fulfilment of Lev. 
xxvi. 26! The words in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14-16, 
came to his mind, especially these: * ‘ They mocked 
the messengers of God, and despised His words, and 
misused HLs prophets, until the wrath of the Lord 
arose against His people, till there teas NO REM¬ 
EDY.' 1 ' 1 And at last as he was walking one day on 
the Mount of Olives, mourning like Nehemiah over 
the desolations of Jerusalem, asking himself, Why 
was this wrath upon his people ? it came into his 
mind that it must be that Jesus the Nazarene had 
been the messenger of God, because of whose rejec¬ 
tion by Israel His wrath abode upon the nation. 
He returned to his lodging in the city, and the word 
was then brought to his mind from the New Tes¬ 
tament, “Without me ye can do nothing.” The 
light had come; from that time he saw and con¬ 
fessed that Jesus was of a truth the promised Messiah; 
that it was because of the Jews’ rejection of Him 
that the wrath was against them; and that, by con¬ 
sequence, the way to deliverance from the curse 
upon the nation, was through their believing ac- 


322 


APPENDIX. 


ceptance of Jesus as the promised Messiah and Re- 
deemer of Israel. The restoration could only come 
through faith in Him. To use his words, “The key 
to the Holy Land is in the hands of our brother, 
JESUS ! ” 

He returned home to study the New Testament. 
The Jews came to him in great numbers to hear the 
result of his visit to Jerusalem. To all that came 
he declared the truth which had been revealed to 
him. The word of Jesus came to him with power, 
and he gave it in turn to his enslaved and oppressed 
countrymen,—“ If the Son shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed.” 

They listened; some reviled, and said he had gone 
mad: others began to say, “He is right.” The 
number of those who believed with him increased, 
and is still increasing. They soon began to meet 
for worship in the name of Jesus, as Jews who had 
received Him as Messiah, and so the work has gone on 
to the present time. After some time, Rabinowitz 
went to Berlin, conferred there with Prof. Delitzsch, 
Mr. Wilkinson, and other friends of the Jews; and 
before returning to Kischineff, was baptized in Ber¬ 
lin, by the Rev. Prof. Mead, of the Andover Theo¬ 
logical Seminary, Andover, Mass., then stopping in 
that city. It would appear that at first the faith of 
Rabinowitz apprehended but little of the truth; but 
he has steadily progressed in the knowledge of 
Christ, till now he has come to the full reception of 
all the truth concerning Jesus which is the common 
belief of the evangelical church. To use again his 
own words: “At first I revered Jesus as the Man 
with the compassionate heart; then, as the great 
Benefactor of Israel; but now as the Lamb of God 


APPENDIX. 


323 


wlio died for my sins! ” The latest intelligence that 
we have seen concerning the progress of this move¬ 
ment is contained in a letter from Rabinowitz to 
Rev. Dr. A. Saphir, London, dated April 19,1887. In 
it he writes as follows: 

“Since I retumed.home, multitudes upon multitudes come 
to me to find salvation. On Good Friday, on the following 
Saturday, and on Easter Sunday, we had services in our place 
of worship ; each day I preached two hours long, concerning 
the sufferings of our Lord, and His resurrection. All the 
three days our place of worship was crowded with men, 
women, and children, who listened with open ears and with 

faces full of awe and earnestness.Tell the brethren in 

London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, that in the valley of Russia 
the dr} 7 bones of Israel are beginning to come together, bone 
to bone; and those who have eyes can also see sinews and 
flesh. But there is no spirit in them yet. Therefore pray to 
the Father that He would command the four winds to breathe 
upon these slain, that they may live ! and that the whole 
world may know that Jehovah spoke and also performed.” 

As bearing on the future of the Jewish nation, the 
following points concerning this movement deserve 
to be emphasized. In the first place, the movement, 
in a peculiar sense, is not of man, but of the Holy 
Spirit. Neither in its first beginning in the heart of 
Rabinovvitz, nor since his conversion, has it been in 
any degree the result of Christian labor for the Jews. 
Again, although Christian, it is none the less strict¬ 
ly Jewish. Neither Rabinowitz nor any of those, 
like Profs. Delitzsch, Strack, and other eminent 
Christians with whom he has latterly advised, have 
any thought of an amalgamation of these believing 
Jews with any of the churches or Christian commu¬ 
nities of Christendom.* It is in the strictest sense a 


* Profs. I)elitz3cli, Strack, and others, at a Conference in 




324 


APPENDIX. 


movement of national character. From the first, 
the faith of Rahinowitz and his followers has looked 
to Jesus the Messiah not only for personal, hut for 
national redemption. In a letter of Oct., 1884, Rah¬ 
inowitz expresses this in these touching words: 

“ Since my feet trod in the earthly Jerusalem with the view 
of finding a hiding-place for myself and my people against the 
hatred of the world, my eyes have been opened to see Him 
whom they pierced, and I began to lament over Him : ‘ Woe, 
my Brother, and woe, my Lord ! ’ Since then, looking up to 
Him in faith, true hope sprang up within me, and by the 
grace of God which had been given to me . . . . willingly 
and without the least reserve I gave up all to proclaim frankly 
and freely to my unbelieving and unhappy people that Jesus, 
who nearly 2,000 years ago was ignominiously put to death on 
the cross outside the gates of Jerusalem, was the promised 
Messiah and the Redeemer of Israel! .... I proclaim to 
them on every occasion that if they return to God, and to Da¬ 
vid their King, viz., Jesus of Nazareth, with all their hearts, 
confessing their guilt before Him .... then they, as well as 
the whole creation, will be delivered from ‘the bondage of 
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ ” * 

The same special Jewish character appears in the 
Articles of Faith of these “Sons of the New Cove¬ 
nant,” as they style themselves, the third of which 
reads as follows: 

“According to the counsel and foreknowledge of God, our 

Berlin regarding the Rahinowitz movement, expressed them¬ 
selves strongly to the contrary in the following thesis, which 
was formally adopted as an expression of their judgment: 
“ As this movement may develop into the promised restoration 
of Israel , it is necessary that it remain independent, and be not 
absorbed into any of the existing seel ions of the Christian 
Church ; and that none of these Churches should make their 
help conditional on the acceptance of their particular form (or 
doctrines).”— The First Ripe Fig , p. 15. 

* The First Ripe Fig, p. 36. 




APPENDIX. 


325 


ancestors have been smitten with hardness of heart, to sin and 
rebel against the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, in order to provoke 
to jealousy the other nations of the earth, and to reconcile all 
the children of men through their faith in Christ .... in 
order that the knowledge of God should cover the earth, and 
the Lord be King over the whole world.”* 

Like many Jewish Christians of whom we read in 
the Acts of the Apostles, these modern Jewish be¬ 
lievers observe still certain Jewish rites, such as cir¬ 
cumcision, the passover, and the Sabbath of the 
seventh day. But they appear to stand on the prin¬ 
ciples of Acts xv., and are careful to affirm that they 
regard these observances as in nowise necessary to 
salvation. 

And whether we agree with their judgment as to 
the expediency of this or not, we must admit that 
they but do for the sake of their nation as Paul did 
(Acts xxi. 20, 21), who said of himself that to the 
Jews he became “as a Jew,” that he might “gain 
the Jews” (1 Cor. ix. 20). 

This movement appears, to the present time, to be 
quietly gaining strength and extending in influence. 
The recent experiences of the suffering nation in 
Russia and elsewhere have apparently set many of 
the people to thinking over the painful mystery of 
their lot of sorrow, and are leading one and another 
here and there to fix the eye on that mysterious Son 
of David whose cross significantly stands at the be¬ 
ginning of their eighteen hundred years of suffering. 

The Rev. Dr. Saphir, speaking of this fact, gives 
illustrative extracts from letters received by him from 
various Jews in Poland, such as the following. 

One Jew writes: 

“ 1 have heard from a sensible and honest man that there 

* lb., p. S4. 



326 


APPENDIX. 


are sacred documents which date from the time of the Holy 
Redeemer, and which prove that God had sent Him for the 
good of the nation. Since I heard this, fear lias taken hold of 
me, lest we should have committed a sin in rejecting Him, 
and lest our souls should have to suffer for it in the next 
world. I must search into this while I have life. I am a 
teacher of Jewish children, and my pupils will hereafter be 
thankful to me, if I kindle for them a new light. Can the 
whole woild be mistaken about the Messiahsliip of Jesus?” 

Another, a scholar learned in the Talmud, writes: 

“Asa spark among the ashes, the thought of Jesus lives in 

my heart.God alone knows my heart, and will open 

the way for me out of my difficulties. At present I am only 
anxious to keep my heart loyal to the salvation-bringing 
Lover.” * 

Into such prepared soil, silently moistened by the 
dew of the Holy Spirit, is falling the good seed. The 
sermons and addresses of Rabinovutz are published 
in Hebrew and in Russian, and are sent by post to all 
the towns in Russia where Jew's reside; and he tells 
us, “thousands of our Jewish brethren are reading 
them attentively and rejoice in them as in great 
treasures, according to letters which I receive daily. 
There is scarcely a town in Russia where there are 
not some who belong to the ‘ Sons of the New Cov¬ 
enant.’” Another centre of this Judaeo-Christian 
movement has appeared in Tapio-Szele, near Buda- 
Pesth in Hungary, where, in like manner to Rab- 
inowitz, one Rabbi Lichtenstein, without the inter¬ 
vention of any man, by his searching of the Scrip¬ 
tures has come to the conviction that Jesus w r as the 
promised Messiah, and in the face of bitter persecu¬ 
tion has confessed Him among his Jewish brethren. 

* See The Everlasting Nation. By Adolph Saphir, D.D., Lon¬ 
don. John F. Shaw & Co. Pp. 27, 28. 




APPENDIX. 


327 


He has issued two remarkable pamphlets affirming 1 
and arguing the Divinity and Messiahship of Jesus, 
in which he calls upon the Jews in all the world to 
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah of 
Israel and the Saviour of the world. The pamphlets 
have already had a large circulation all over the 
continent of Europe, and, according to The Word 
and Work , this movement “bids fair to equal, if it 
does not surpass, the Rabinowitz movement.” 

Meantime, Christian efforts for the salvation of 
the Jews continue to multiply, and find support in 
the highest quarters. The Mildmay Mission to the 
Jews has recently purchased, and is now actively 
distributing throughout Jewish Europe, an edition of 
100,000 copies of the New Testament. We are told 
that while thirty years ago it was almost impossible 
to get a Jew to look at the New Testament, the book is 
now by multitudes eagerly sought for and read. Of 
special interest also are the Instituta Judaica of 
Germany, of which the leading spirit is the vener¬ 
able Old Testament scholar and friend of Israel, 
Prof. Delitzsch, of Leipzig. These are founded for 
the purpose of Jewish evangelization, and exist al¬ 
ready in nine of the German Universities. The 
Leipzig Institute now appeals for funds to establish 
a special school in that city for the purpose of train¬ 
ing young men for the Jewish work. The course is 
to be arranged by Prof. Delitzsch, who will also take 
a prominent part in the instruction. 

More might be added, but enough has been given 
to show how much reason there is for adding to the 
significant signs of the times regarding the Jewish 
nation, these national movements among them to- 
wanl a confession of the Messiahship of Jesu3. We 



328 


APPENDIX. 


cannot venture on prediction; we may admit that 
through the eagerness of desire, it is possible that we 
may overrate the significance of these things. But 
certainly it was not without some reason that in 
the first Thesis adopted at the Berlin Conference 
touching the Rabinowitz movement, men like Profs. 
Struck and Delitzsch formally suggested to the Chris¬ 
tian Church that this movement “may develop into 
the promised restoration of Israel.” * Very just and 
weighty are the following words from a recent ap¬ 
peal of the Mildmay Mission in behalf of the work 
of Rabinowitz: 

“The importance of the movement in South Russia must be 
estimated, not by its numerical strength, but by its intrinsic 
character. It must be viewed in connection with the present 
condition of the Jewish nation, and in the light of the pro¬ 
phetic Word. A crisis is evidently approaching. Talmudism 
and the attempt to modernize Judaism, and to reduce it to 
rationalistic Deism, have both failed and proved themselves 
to be without vitality; and yet the national consciousness 
has been roused and strengthened by the recent experiences 

of the anti-Semitic movement.It appears ... as an 

indication—a foreshadowing of a national movement, when 
we hear of Jews (however few in number) who have come to 
the conclusion that their dispersion and condition during the 
last eighteen centuries is the consequence of their rejection 
of Jesus—that Jesus is the promised Messiah, Son of David, 
and King of Israel; that the writings of the Evangelists and 
Apostles are the continuation of the Divine Record intrusted 
to the fathers ; that salvation is by grace and righteousness— 
not by the works of the law—but by faith in the crucified and 
risen Redeemer.” 

Truly one cannot but recall to mind the words of 
our Lord: ‘ ‘ Now from the fig-tree learn her parable; 

* Fii. sup., p. 3£4, note. 




APPENDIX. 


329 


when her branch is now become tender, and putteth 
forth leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh; even 
so, ye also, when ye see all these things, know ye 
that He is nigh, even at the doois.” * 


* Matt. xxiv. 32, 33, R. V. 





















































































































































































































































































































































































































